The Tender Ghost: A Passover Story
by miloowen
Summary: Follows Haman's Son. With their shipboard wedding set for Cochrane Day, Will and Jean-Luc find that they are not only trying to put Will's illness behind them but that they are also having to negotiate the boundaries of their personal and professional relationship. Add to that Will's continued interest in Judaism, Passover, an argument with Robert, and Mrs Troi's arrival.
1. Chapter 1

1.

I was reading through the latest batch of personnel reports and sipping my final cup of coffee (_still_ decaf) when I felt a hand on my shoulder and Jean-Luc said, "You are a hard man to find." He gave my shoulder a squeeze, which is the most that either one of us would ever do in public, let alone in Ten Forward, and sat down across from me. Mac sauntered over and Jean-Luc said quietly, "I believe that Guinan has something for me under the bar. Neat, thank you."

Mac quirked one eyebrow and wandered away; I grinned.

"The only group on this ship that's doing any hard work at the moment, sir," I said, "or that isn't involved in make-do work, is stellar cartography. So you're telling me one of two things: either Admiral Nechayev is on her way, or Ambassador Troi is."

He grimaced at me, which I took to be a smile, but didn't say anything; having received the shot glass from Mac, he took a sip. I kicked him under the table – lightly – and there was a flicker in his eyes that made me want to back away. Then he laughed.

"You could have comm'd me," I said.

"I wasn't looking for my first officer," he replied.

"Ah," I said.

The first months of our relationship had been spent with me isolated and in sickbay; emotionally I'd been completely dependent upon him. Since my recovery we were trying to negotiate a personal relationship which had been intense but which was now stabilising into what we both hoped was something permanent; Jean-Luc had asked me to marry him, and a month or so later, I had reciprocated. This was complicated, however, by our professional relationship, and it was the guidelines of the new professional relationship that we were working on, now.

On the one hand, we were often simply too busy to do anything but fall into bed at the end of a long and sometimes fraught day. That was easy. It was times like this, when we were drifting in space, working on science projects, that the guidelines of what would and would not work became important. Jean-Luc was an intensely personal man; a shy man. He kept, some would say, a cold demeanor; I'd figured out, early in, that was merely a cover because he felt things so deeply. My persona had been extroverted and boisterous before I'd fallen apart; if people thought you were shallow and none too bright, they didn't make emotional demands of you. Jean-Luc had figured out my cover early in as well.

Well, I was still loud and silly, but it was real, this time; Dr McBride, my psychiatrist, had shown me that I could feel again without the world caving in on me, and I was still working on that. Jean-Luc had been fiercely protective of me when I'd been sick, and he still was – that was something he was working on, to let go, a little.

I finished my coffee and turned off my padd. "Personnel reports," I said. I reached for his hand, and was surprised when he allowed me to hold it. "What's wrong?" He didn't answer for a moment, and I said, "Tell me it's really not Admiral Nechayev."

"No, it's not Admiral Nechayev," he answered.

"Mrs Troi?" I asked, grinning.

He sighed. "She sent a video acceptance of the invitation," he said. "It is," he said in that dry tone he used, "required viewing."

I laughed. "I'm sure it is," I said. "But that's not what's wrong."

"No," he said. "I could use one of your ten words to describe it, Will."

I was delighted. "Oh, please do, Jean-Luc," I said. "Can I guess, first?"

Now he was laughing. "By all means, William," he answered.

"Well," I drawled, "it couldn't be _cranky_, although you were cranky when you walked in here."

"Indeed," he agreed.

"In fact," I said, "I thought you were going to jump me, for a second there."

He looked at me blankly, and then the neutral expression took over his face. "When you assaulted me, you mean?" he asked. "I did think about it."

I was tempted to provide a little drama, but I actually possess better judgment – sometimes, anyway – so I said, "I only tapped you, Jean-Luc."

"You kicked me," he said, "and I don't think we should be playing –" he lowered his voice "_footsie_ in Ten Forward."

I would have liked to have fallen out of my chair at this point, but I maintained what I hoped was a dignified expression. "And you accuse me of being silly," I said, "and I know it's not _silly_, either. So –" I pretended to think over it for a minute.

"William," he said, "you are supposed to be an intelligent man, and it is only ten words."

"You're killing me, Jean-Luc," I said. "It's not _cranky_ or _silly_. It's not _mad_, although I think you're feeling mad. It might be _difficult_ –" I looked at him, and then I said, "I know – it's _stupid_. Whatever it is that's bothering you, it's stupid, and it's made you mad." I was triumphant, and he rolled his eyes.

"You two seem to be having a good time," Guinan said, and she pulled up a chair. "Although you don't usually drink whiskey at this time of day, Picard."

"Hello, Guinan," I said. "Why don't you join us?"

"Thank you, Will," she replied, "I would like that."

Jean-Luc rolled his eyes again.

"The captain," I said to Guinan as I waved Mac over – I might as well indulge in another cup of coffee – "is feeling mad over something stupid."

Guinan looked at both of us, and then she said, "This sounds like an in-joke to me."

Mac brought me a refill.

"It is," Jean-Luc said, "a reference to Mr Riker's limited emotional vocabulary."

"I thought he was supposed to be over that," Guinan commented.

Jean-Luc grinned, the one that terrified junior officers. "Yes," he said.

"That's why it's funny," I said, "because he's using my words."

"I see," Guinan said. "So what is so stupid that it's made you mad, Picard?"

Jean-Luc hesitated, for about a fraction of a second – I saw it, and so did Guinan. I didn't know what his relationship had been with Guinan, other than that they were very close – but whether their relationship was sexual, _that_ I didn't know. However, that hesitation caught me just a little by surprise, because he'd been joking, before, but now it felt as if he were in the middle of a former girlfriend and a present boyfriend – Guinan was smiling, though, so perhaps I was (as I tended to do) making too much of everything.

"This will be," Jean-Luc said, "a little familiar for you, Guinan. I received a communication from my brother, today."

Jean-Luc had talked to me about his family, of course he had; during the course of my illness we'd had several conversations about his family and its dynamics, as he tried to give me a reference point for what families were supposed to be like and what they were realistically like. I knew, of course, that Jean-Luc and his brother were fiercely competitive, all throughout their shared childhood and young adulthood as well. And that some of that had been resolved when Jean-Luc had returned to his home in France after the Borg. I knew too that much of the coolness between the two of them had also been resolved, because Jean-Luc now regularly communicated with his "uncle" René.

"You mean, a response to the invitation?" I asked. I suddenly felt I was treading on unstable ground.

"Oh, it was a response to the invitation," Jean-Luc replied, and I couldn't quite identify the tone of voice he was using. "They would like to come, of course they would, but it's spring and it's the wrong time…They send their regrets."

I looked down at my cup of coffee. "I'm sorry, Jean-Luc," I said. There was something more to this, and I waited to hear what it was; the only family I had, my great-aunt Tasya and my great-uncle Marty, were well over one hundred and I didn't expect them to come, even though I'd sent them the invitation. I had sent an invitation to my one cousin who'd been my friend when I was a child, even though I hadn't known he was my cousin. When your family still lives in a tribal village in Alaska, the likelihood of them coming to deep space was probably nil.

"Is this about the title, Picard?" Guinan asked.

Jean-Luc shrugged, that quintessential European gesture he made. "It would seem so," he said, still using that odd tone of voice. "It's not as if I am the heir. René is."

I wanted to ask him what he was talking about, but it suddenly occurred to me that whatever it was; it had nothing to do with what was really bothering him.

I said, "Are you off the bridge now? Because I'll walk you back to our quarters."

"You're still on shift," he said.

"I know," I answered. "But as First Officer, I have a little leeway, now and then."

Jean-Luc looked down for a moment.

"Picard," Guinan said, "I'd take him up on his offer, if I were you." She stood up. "Gentlemen," she said, "it's been a pleasure."

I watched her walk away, and I took his hand again. "Come on," I said. "I'll walk with you."

He finished his drink. "All right, Will," he said.

We left Ten Forward, walking together but not too closely, which I guess in a way was silly, because the whole ship knew we were together and that we were getting married, it was the only subject of conversation, it seemed. Deanna had told me that the whole ship was celebrating, which I found embarrassing and Jean-Luc found – at least this is what I surmised, from his reaction – humiliating.

"Deck Eight," Jean-Luc said when we entered the turbo lift.

Moving into the married captain's quarters had been an epic all of its own; we'd been on the ship for seven years and while I travelled relatively lightly, Jean-Luc had the entire library of Alexandria before it had burned in his quarters and moving it, despite willing workers and the transporter, had been a royal pain in the ass.

Still, we were moved, and there was no carpeting for me to soak when I came out of the shower, and there was enough room in the head for two people – which had led to a few enjoyable discoveries – and we had a bed that could actually comfortably fit the two of us, although Jean-Luc pointed out that it didn't matter how large our bed was, as he always seemed to wind up in the morning with me as close to him as I could possibly get.

"I could take a few hours off," I offered, "and make it up later."

"You're due back on the bridge," Jean-Luc said.

"An hour, then," I answered.

"There isn't anything you can do," he replied as we stepped out of the turbo lift.

We walked down the hallway.

"I can listen," I said quietly.

"I don't even know why it's bothering me," he responded. "I should have expected it. I was expecting it."

He opened the doors to our quarters, and I followed him inside and then took him in my arms. It felt good to be comforting him, for a change.

"Why don't you," I said, "go take a long hot shower, and I'll fix something for you, and then you can tell me what it is, okay? If you want to, that is."

"We should talk about it," he said into my shoulder. "It's why I was looking for you."

"That is not the same thing, I don't think," I said.

"No," he answered. "I believe Rabbi Cardozo has had a profound effect on you."

"Yes," I said simply. "I told you I was going to grow up, Jean-Luc."

"You are my sweet boy," he said, kissing me.

"Go on, go take a shower." I let him go, and watched him disappear into our bedroom.

Married quarters for the captain was like having a decent apartment in San Francisco. We had a small kitchen and eating area, the dayroom, two bedrooms, and a terrific view. The kitchen had been the deal-maker for me. Despite the fact that I'd nearly starved myself to death during my illness, I've always enjoyed meal preparation and cooking real food. The replicator is easy, and when you do two shifts a day – one on and one on-call – it's a necessity. But there's something very soothing about preparing a meal from real food. Guinan and I have a deal now; she lets me know what she can find; I give her a standing order. It had been her job to try to coax me into eating during my illness. We'd traded recipes and ideas on food since then, and becoming friends with Guinan had been one of the many unexpected bonuses of my falling apart.

Jean-Luc had showed me how to make real tea – mind you, I knew how to make tea; all the Russians in my family drink it – but he is more picky about his tea, I think, than he is about the _Enterprise_. I set the kettle on to boil, and thought about what he might find pleasing to snack on, given that I had to go back on the bridge and we probably wouldn't have dinner together until much later. Finally I decided just to do a platter of cheeses and fruit, with some pickles, and chutney, and the dark bread that my auntie Tasya had shown me how to make.

I'd set everything up on the table in the dayroom when he walked out, and I let him pour himself his tea. I just had water; I'd drunk enough coffee, even if it had been decaf, and I'm not a fan of hot tea.

"This looks lovely," he said as he sat down. "Who would have thought you would turn out to be such a domesticated creature."

I just rolled my eyes. "I spent my childhood cooking, Jean-Luc," I said, "and you know this."

He sipped his tea and helped himself. "Where did you get this?" he asked. "This is real horseradish cheddar."

I shrugged. "I'm a dealmaker," I answered, "and you already know that, too."

He laughed. "Another reason why I wasn't a particularly good first officer," he said. "Despite being French, I've never quite gotten the knack of haggling."

"It runs in my blood," I said, sitting down next to him. "All those _cheechako_ traders."

"I was told that wasn't a very nice word," he scolded.

"No," I agreed, "it's not a very nice word."

I stretched my legs.

"You tired, Will?" he asked.

"A little," I said.

"This can wait until you come off the bridge, if you're too tired. I don't want you overtired."

"I'm fine," I said. "I can be tired, Jean-Luc, without being ill."

He sighed. "Yes, I know," he said. "I still worry, though. It will take time, Will."

"I'm patient," I said.

He took my hand. "You are a wonder, sometimes," he said. "I find it hard to believe. How much has changed, in a year."

"Now I'm the one who's worried," I said. "This has really upset you. What did he say, your brother?"

"Oh," Jean-Luc said. "He didn't come out and say anything. You can read what he wrote, Will. And of course," and he smiled, "you have to watch Mrs Troi's reply."

I rolled my eyes. "I can just imagine," I said. "But –?"

"What he wrote seems innocuous," he said, finally. "And it's all true, of course. It is, spring. The young vines have to be taken care of. He needs to oversee it himself. He could send Marie and René, but Marie won't come without him."

"But?" I repeated.

"It's the implications," he said. "That, once again, I've done what wouldn't have pleased my father. That I haven't fulfilled my obligations, as a Picard. That there's the family, and the family name, to consider."

I was quiet. "This is about marrying me?" I asked. "Your brother is objecting to your marrying me?"

"It's not personal, Will," Jean-Luc said, "or, at least it isn't to Robert. It's extremely personal, to me."

"Because you're marrying a man," I said. "He didn't know?"

"Perhaps not," he answered. "I don't know. I didn't date much, when I was still living at home. Not because there wasn't anyone I wasn't interested in, but because I felt I didn't have the time. I was so determined to succeed."

"To succeed at what?" I asked curiously; he so rarely talked about himself.

"My only goal, the years that I was in upper school, was to get into the Academy. Everything I did was driven by that goal. Because both my father and my grandfather opposed it, it was all the more important that I make that goal."

Since I'd been groomed for the Academy from the age of seven, struggling to get into the Academy wasn't something I was too familiar with.

"So you didn't date at all?"

"Oh, I did, but there wasn't anyone serious," he said. "And then – then I failed the test."

"That must have been hard," I said. I remembered, when Jean-Luc had picked me to be his first officer, I'd immediately gone and done as much research as I could on him. I'd been surprised – completely surprised – to discover that he hadn't made first admission, and then, that he hadn't been a particularly brilliant student, either. It had made me intensely curious about him, because his career had been brilliant – but having met him, I could easily see that he must have been shy, and anxious, and perhaps too overwrought to have done well on the first try.

"When I did fall in love, the first time," he said, "it was with this boy I'd met at the library. Michel. I was determined to pass the test the next time, and I wasn't going to give my brother or my father any ammunition against my taking the test again. So they never knew about Michel. I never brought him home."

"So it's entirely possible, Jean-Luc," I said, "since you had been estranged, that it never occurred to Robert that you would be interested in men too."

"Yes, I suppose that's so," Jean-Luc said. "But to be so – so pigheaded –"

"That," I said, "sounds like a very familiar complaint."

To my surprise, he laughed. "You are very wise," he said, and he pulled me in and kissed me. "It is, indeed, a very familiar complaint. I always said Robert was pigheaded, and Robert always called me cold and arrogant."

"Dmitri called me Mr fucking Federation once," I offered. "Because I kept trying to get him to follow the rules."

"From what you've told me about your cousin Dmitri, William, that must have been a losing proposition." He sighed. "You need to get on the bridge, Will. And I need to sort out what I'm going to say to Robert."

"Don't be too hard on him, Jean-Luc," I said, standing. "After all, it's not worth the two of you fighting again. I don't know him, not yet, so it doesn't hurt my feelings. And – ultimately – he'll just have to get used to it."

"You must remind me," Jean-Luc said, smiling, "to reward Rabbi Cardozo with a field promotion to commander."

2.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

The lights in the dayroom were set low when I walked in after my shift, and I didn't hear any music playing.

"Jean-Luc?" I called.

"In here, Will," he answered.

I walked into the second bedroom, which was supposed to be an office for the two of us but was rapidly turning into Jean-Luc's library instead. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading.

"I thought you were supposed to be putting these away?" I asked. We'd had a technician in to build shelves.

He smiled at me sheepishly. "I am," he answered, "and I was. And then I met an old friend and got distracted…."

"Let me guess," I said. "It's Aeschylus or someone."

"Your education is showing," he replied. "I thought you pretended you didn't know any of these books."

"I'm going to make dinner," I said. I glanced at him. "You'll need to wash up. Do you have any requests?"

"You're using the replicator, or you're making something?"

I sighed. "I'll be glad to make you something, Jean-Luc, if that's what you'd like," I answered.

"Why don't we just have an omelet, since it's light and easy to make, and I know that Guinan got you some eggs that were actually edible?" He grinned.

He was referring, of course, to my one attempt to show off my cooking skills to everyone, early on in my posting here. I'd found some eggs and went through the whole omelet-pan routine, only to find out that the eggs were disgusting. As with the few songs I had trouble playing on my trombone, it was everyone's standing joke.

"I've told you this before," I said. "The crew has no idea just how mean you are."

"Another one of your words," he said, standing. "I will do nothing to annoy the cook, Will. I'll go wash up."

"Thank you," I said. I stood aside, so he could walk by, and then I grabbed him.

"You had an idea for dessert?" he asked.

I laughed. "Go on," I said. "I'm glad you're feeling better."

"I wouldn't go that far," he answered, and now he was being serious. "I've written what I wanted to say to Robert, but I haven't sent it. I thought you could take a look at his communication first."

"Okay, Jean-Luc," I said. The idea that he considered me well enough to handle this; that he would actually come to me – I wanted to wrap him in my arms and take him off to bed.

He disappeared into the bedroom, and I set about making some cheese omelets with that horseradish cheddar and a few scallions Guinan had found.

Jean-Luc poured himself a glass of wine and sat down at the table as I was plating the omelets.

"Would you like a glass, Will?" he asked.

"No, I'm good," I said. Tzippi Cardozo had showed me how to make her iced tea, and I had some of that.

I sat down and waited as Jean-Luc took a bite.

"Okay?" I asked.

"This is delicious," he said. "Thank you. A warm meal is always comforting, Will."

"It's a nice change," I remarked.

"What is, _mon cher_?" he asked.

"This," I said. "Being able to comfort you."

He smiled, the one where his mouth was warm and his eyes crinkled up. "It was never a competition, you know," he said. "You have never owed me anything, Will. I do hope you know that."

"I know," I said. "But it's still nice, for a change."

We were quiet, then. One of the biggest changes, for me – and this had begun when I'd first started seeing Jean-Luc, in that week before I'd attempted suicide – was that I could now just be with someone – with Jean-Luc – and just enjoy his company, and I could be me, and not have to entertain or regale or tell jokes or anything. I loved this, about the meals we shared together – the ones in the evening, when we were both off – whether I fixed us something to eat or not, we were simply together, sharing this quiet time. Even all those years ago when I'd been a kid, and when I'd been convinced that Deanna was the love of my life, I'd never been able to turn myself off. I was always performing. Beverly had been correct, in choosing me for her acting troupe on the ship – I'd been acting my whole life. Now there was no longer any need.

"I thought we might have some dessert," I said, as we finished.

He leered at me and I burst out laughing. "That wasn't what you had in mind, Mr Riker?" he asked.

It was the way he said my name, "Mr Riker." It was instant, every time. "Well, I was actually referring to the fact that Guinan had found some strawberries," I said, "but they can always wait."

"If you've made something special," he began, but he was now laughing too.

"The strawberries," I said, standing, "and the dishes, and Mrs Troi and your brother can all wait, as far as I'm concerned, Mr Picard."

"Shall we take this elsewhere, then?" he asked, but he was already in my arms, and we were already on our way to taking it elsewhere.

When I awoke, he wasn't in bed. I rose and went into the head, wrapping my robe around me when I'd finished. Then I said, "Lights, twenty percent," and went looking for Jean-Luc. Not surprisingly, he was back in the library, but the door was pulled shut, so I cleaned up our kitchen space and put things away and then I knocked on the door.

"Jean-Luc? Aren't you coming back to bed?"

"You can come in, Will," he said. "I just didn't want to disturb you."

I pushed the door pad and stood in the doorway. He was at his desk this time, looking at a rather large family album.

"He's really upset you, hasn't he?" I asked. "Maybe you should let me see what he wrote."

"It's what he didn't write," Jean-Luc said.

"Staying up all night is not going to solve anything," I replied. "Come to bed. You can let me look at it in the morning, okay? And don't send anything back, not yet. You're clearly too bothered by this to send something right away."

I walked over to him and looked at the old-fashioned pictures in the book. It was fascinating, because here was his family, his legacy, his identity, all in these pages. I'd spent my whole life thinking I was alone except for the man who'd tortured me and abused me, only to find out that I'd had a family, one that he'd kept from me. I wondered if my auntie Tasya had a book like this, and if there were pictures of my mother in it.

"Is that you, Jean-Luc?" I asked. It seemed weird that he should be a child in one of these old photographs.

He smiled. "I believe that that is one of my great-great-great-great-grandparents," he answered, "or something close to that."

"Strong family resemblance," I said, and when he looked up at me, I was grinning.

"Has anyone ever told you, Mr Riker," he replied, "that you are a royal pain in my arse?"

"I think you have, sir, on several occasions," I answered.

"Only several?" He closed the book and stood up, and then pulled me down for a kiss. "Back to bed it is," he agreed.

"I could lend you my safe space," I offered, as we walked back to the bedroom; he was holding my hand. "If you think you can't sleep."

"Come here, you," he said, sliding into the bed and then pulling me into his arms. He kissed my hair. "You mean in the Arboretum, by the pond?" he asked. "You would let me in, Will?"

"You've always been allowed in, Jean-Luc," I answered. "I thought you knew that."

"_Tu es mon garçon doux_," he replied, kissing me again.

"Love you," I answered sleepily. "We'll fix it, Jean-Luc," I murmured. "Go to sleep."

When I'd been ill, I often wasn't able to tell the difference between when I was dreaming and when I was having a hallucination. I knew this was a dream, because it was the same dream I always had. I was walking down the path behind my house into the woods, down to the creek, and I was looking for Jean-Luc, because he wasn't there; and the closer I got the creek the more certain I was that I would find him in it. I knew – because I'd gone over this so many times, first with Dr McBride and then later, with Deanna – I knew where the dream came from, and what it symbolised, and what everything meant. I knew why I had it. I knew what it was about. The central trauma of my childhood – beyond what my father had done to me – was my father's murder of my best friend when we were eight years old. I had "found" her body in the creek behind our cabin. It was the ultimate anxiety dream, featuring Jean-Luc. I would search and search the woods, wandering down one path after another, just as I had spent those weeks after Rosie disappeared searching for her, and then I would come to the edge of the creek, to the deep pool where I'd caught my first fish and my cousin Dmitri and I had fallen in, and I would look into the water and there would be Jean-Luc, floating in the same way that I'd found Rosie. Inevitably, even though I knew that this was a dream, and even though I'd gone over it and over it with Deanna, I would wake up in a cold sweat, or I would wake up crying, and it was so humiliating, because I was supposed to be better. I was supposed to be well. But this still happened, whenever I felt anxious about my ability to manage my emotions, or whenever I would allow my stupid tendency to project my fears onto Jean-Luc. Jean-Luc handled it the way he'd handled everything when I was ill, with kindness and care and patience. Still.

This time I was running down the path, half-stumbling over rocks and brambles and ferns, and I was crying because I knew what I would find when I came to the creek, and yet as I turned to take the final loop down to the pool Jean-Luc's brother was there on the path, dressed in the same way he'd been in the one picture I'd seen of him and his wife and René, the one Jean-Luc had taken when he'd visited his family after the Borg. I stopped, because in the dream I was the same age I was when I lost Rosie, and this man – Robert – was so much bigger than me. "See what you've done," he shouted at me, and he was pointing to Jean-Luc, who was looking like the child in the old photograph I'd seen earlier, floating in the pool.

I felt Jean-Luc take me in his arms, and I heard him murmuring something to me in French, which is what he sometimes did when he wanted me to calm down, and I felt him kissing me as he held me against his chest. He simply held me and gave me the space to stop crying and to calm myself.

"What happened, _mon cœur_?" he said softly. "Not the dream, again?"

"I'm sorry," I said, because I'd been doing so well and I'd been so sure that I wasn't going to have to do this anymore.

"It's all right," he said, "you just let me hold you. You don't have to apologise, you know that, Will. I'm right here."

"I'm so tired of this," I said.

"Shhh," he answered. "I upset you, with this business with my brother. It's all right, Will."

"It's so stupid," I said, "I was in the woods, and I couldn't find you –"

"Will," he said, "I know, it's the same dream every time. It's all right."

"It wasn't the same, this time," I said. "It's like it's out of a fucking textbook, Jean-Luc. I'm so tired of it."

He kissed the back of my neck. "What was different, this time?"

"This time you looked like the old photo we saw in your album," I said, "and your brother was there and he said that it was my fault you were in the creek."

"Will," he said patiently.

"I know, I know," I said, "it's just so fucking stupid."

"You're working yourself up," he said, "and you know that I have the hypo spray that Beverly gave me."

I was quiet, and then I said, "I can't believe you're threatening me with a hypo spray."

"Then you're going to calm down, aren't you?" he said. "Take a breath. Making yourself feel bad because you had a nightmare is not going to help, Will."

I breathed.

"_Bien_," he said. "Now again. That's it. Whether it's stupid or not is beside the point. It upset you. But you can calm yourself down, and I'm right here."

I could feel myself breathing, and then I could feel myself relaxing, a bit. He loosened his hold on me and I felt myself leaning into him.

"There you go," he said. "You'll be all right now. Just let me hold you until you go back to sleep."

"I'll go back to my safe place," I said.

"Why don't you let me come with you," he suggested. "We'll go together."

In my mind I could see us walking into the Arboretum, and I felt him take my hand. I could feel myself breathing as we walked down the path to the little pond.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

Usually it was Jean-Luc who woke me in the morning. He is a morning person, after all; he's always taken alpha shift without complaint; schedules early morning staff meetings and even earlier breakfasts with Beverly. I am not a morning person, yet another one of the intrinsic differences between the two of us. I've taught myself to retire at a reasonable hour but not because it's my inclination; perhaps it's the musician in me, but I prefer the late night hours. We'd managed to make our schedules work despite these differences. Two days a week I still went to PT with Jai Patel, and on those two mornings Jean-Luc had his customary breakfast with Beverly. It had seemed a simple adjustment to me, as PT requires absolutely no thought whatsoever, and always ended with a massage; I was reasonably awake and ready to start the day, after. Jean-Luc had been surprised when I'd suggested it, but he'd forgotten, as he often did because the ship ran smoothly, that I was the one who made these adjustments so the ship would run smoothly.

I guess I'd managed to exhaust him, however, because I was the one who woke first. At first I'd had the unimaginable thought that we'd both slept in. While that might have amused the senior staff and the bridge crew, it would have undoubtedly sent Jean-Luc into a sour mood, something to be avoided at all costs. I slipped out of the bed and went into the head to urinate, and checked the time with the computer. We weren't that out of synch; there was no reason to panic, and certainly no reason for me to stay out of bed or wake Jean-Luc.

I crawled back into the bed and turned into him. It seemed that I'd wakened him anyway, and he reached his arm around me and pulled me to him.

"Is this a Beverly morning?" I asked.

He grunted, and then he kissed my head. "Good morning to you, too," he said, his voice low and still sleepy.

I closed my eyes and started to drift off.

"No," he said, after a moment.

"Good," I answered. "I give us both permission to sleep in."

He was silent, and I thought he'd gone back to sleep.

Then he said, "While that's a lovely idea, William, today isn't the day."

"I thought it wasn't a Beverly morning," I mumbled.

"We've a staff meeting at 0830 and you have a battle simulation to run," he answered.

He tried to sit up, and I pulled him back down. "But it's still too early to get up," I protested.

"I need to send my response to Robert," he said.

I sighed. "I'm awake," I said. "But you owe me."

He laughed. "And what exactly do I owe you, _mon cher_?"

I sat up. "One morning together, uninterrupted," I replied. "I'll get your tea. You take your shower."

"We could," he said in my ear, "take a shower together."

"I thought we didn't have time," I said.

"You're a little old to be pouting, William," he answered.

I looked at him. He wasn't smiling, but he was teasing me just the same.

"Two mornings," I said.

Breakfast was a little more formal this morning, because there was the communication from his brother to deal with, and the video reply from Mrs Troi. Usually we grabbed a quick breakfast and went our separate ways until the senior staff meeting. Today Jean-Luc set the table – although not in the formal and genteel way he did when he was meeting Beverly – and he had his usual tea and croissant. Food in the morning had remained difficult for me. I tried to eat something, but because I'd been forced to give up caffeine, I usually had no appetite. It wasn't something to worry about, although sometimes I think he did, worry about it. At least I managed something small, for his benefit anyway, if not for mine. Lior Cardozo had introduced me to the English muffin, and I'd decided that it was innocuous enough for me to be able to eat without any issues.

Perhaps it might have been better to start off with Mrs Troi, but Jean-Luc simply handed me his padd when I sat down with my tray from the replicator.

"Is that enough for you, Will?"

He asked me this every morning.

"I have a slice of cheese on the muffin," I answered, "and I have some fruit."

He didn't say anything else, and I read Robert's response to our wedding invitation.

_Brother_, it said, _I received your invitation with a great deal of surprise, seeing as how you have never even mentioned this fellow in your correspondence with my wife. I take it since you are having this aboard your ship that Starfleet does not look askance at such affairs. It isn't awkward, to be marrying one's first officer? Marie would have me thank you for inviting us, which I certainly do, as you have never seen fit to invite us aboard your ship before. And René, of course, is quite eagre for me to accept. But you know what time of year it is, and you know how important it is for me to be here at this time, and while I would send Marie and René together gladly with my regrets, Marie will not go without me, and René is much too young to undertake such a journey on his own. I wonder at the wisdom of such an action, given the situation, but you have always considered yourself above family and after all these years it is obvious that you are incapable of change. Marie would have me send our best wishes, and she will send a suitable gift, in due course. Robert_

I sipped my coffee and wished that it weren't decaffeinated. Finally I said, "This fellow?"

Jean-Luc sighed. "It isn't personal, Will," which is what he'd said to me last night.

"I grant you that it's not personal as he doesn't know me," I said. "But this certainly feels personal."

"I was unable to attend his marriage to Marie," Jean-Luc said.

"Oh." I was quiet. "So this is about that?"

"Yes," Jean-Luc answered, "and every other slight and unfairness that Robert thinks that has ever occurred between us. I had thought that we made some progress toward being finished, with this."

"But isn't he older than you?" I asked. "Surely, since he's the one who took over your family business, and you're the one who disappointed everyone by joining Starfleet, wouldn't that suggest that he was the favourite, if that's the game he's playing?"

"It would, I suppose, if this were logical. Which it is decisively not," Jean-Luc added. "He followed the rules. I broke them. I got the honours; he got the vineyards. Somehow in that there is a litany of abuses."

"I see," I said. "But that just makes it sibling stuff, right? How do you read it as being a disappointment to your family and your father? And – if you don't mind me asking – how could you disappoint your father when he's been dead for so many years?"

Jean-Luc was exactly thirty years older than me. In fact, he was the same age as my father. His parents, while they'd both been living throughout his childhood, had died while he was in the 'Fleet; first his father, when he'd been a lieutenant jg, and then his mother, when he'd been on the _Stargazer_. My mother had died when I was two and a half; my father had allowed himself to be taken down almost four months ago.

"The Picard family," Jean-Luc said, "is very old. We have been in France – and there is a branch across the Pyrenées in Spain – for many centuries. It has come down to my father and his two sons. And then to my brother and his son."

"Oh," I said again. "It's about children."

"Indeed," Jean-Luc said.

I really needed a cup of coffee to think about this, and I stood up and walked over to the replicator. I ordered a dark roast with three creams and then returned to the table. I sat down with my cup and waited for Jean-Luc to point out to me that I wasn't permitted to have caffeine, but his mind was back in France.

"No cousins, Jean-Luc?" I asked.

"None that I know of," he replied.

It was ironic, but the truth was, I had a huge family. My father had kept them from me, even though my mother's aunt and uncle had been the ones to care for me while he was away from home. Most of my childhood playmates had been cousins or related to me in one way or another. My mother had been an only child, but she'd had two aunts who both had had large families, as was traditional in my village. My auntie Tasya was the mother of five children, and the children of those children – my friends Dmitri, and Niall, and Mike, and Tom, and Maya, and all the others – had been my cousins. My father had been the only Riker son, but he'd had two older sisters and they had children. I'd gone from thinking I'd had no one anywhere, to finding Jean-Luc, and then finding my family.

"May I read your response?" I asked.

"Of course, Will," he said mildly.

He really was upset. I read what he'd written back, which was just a little bit terse, but basically said he was sorry that they couldn't come, and letting his brother know that we would be spending our honeymoon on Earth while the _Enterprise_ was at McKinley Station for upgrades and repairs.

"It seems a shame that he won't allow René to come," I said. "He could take the regular service to Betazed, and we are going to be picking up Admiral Laidlaw and Mrs Troi from there."

"René would enjoy it," Jean-Luc said.

"What did Guinan mean about a title, Jean-Luc?" I thought we might get everything out in the open.

He rolled his eyes. "It's Robert's title," he said. "He was the heir. It has nothing to do with me, because it will go to René."

"Who wants to go to the Academy as you did," I answered. "What title?"

"Count," Jean-Luc answered, "Robert is Le Comte de Picard."

"I thought the Federation did away with those things," I said.

He shrugged. "If you say so," he replied.

"Okay," I said. "What you wrote is fine, Jean-Luc."

"Don't let this upset you, Will," he said. "It's just old stuff. Every time I think I'm too old for this, or he's too old for it, it reappears."

I finished my coffee. "It seems to me," I said, standing, "that your brother has made a number of assumptions, Jean-Luc. Perhaps we should go see them, before we go on to Sitges."

"Are you sure that's wise, Will?" Jean-Luc asked, rising as well. "My brother can be very unpleasant."

"You said he's very old-fashioned, didn't you?" I asked.

"To a fault," he answered.

"Well," I said, "then hospitality is everything, and he'll bend over backwards to be nice to me."

He gave a very undignified snort of laughter.

"What?" I said.

"You," he replied, wrapping his arms around me, "are a very bad boy."

I kissed him, and then I shrugged. "It seems to me that tribal people are all the same," I said, "whether they are in a small village in Alaska, or a small village in France." I let him hold me, resting my head against his shoulder. "Besides," I continued, "I've already told you that I think we should have a child. Or two. Anyway, I'd better get this simulation started."

I left him standing in the middle of our dayroom.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

The battle simulation went the way they always did, when you have a topnotch crew; we shaved some seconds off of a reaction time record and the blue team won. There were two casualties, the results of over-eagerness on the part of two ensigns, but as I know only too well, we have a great medical team and their injuries were minor and easily fixed. Jean-Luc usually presented patches as awards for the winning team, something he could normally do in his sleep, but he was off-kilter today and I could have sworn that he wasn't too happy with me, although I didn't know why. Fortunately he kept the ceremony brief and it didn't appear that anyone else noticed that he was even more abrupt than usual.

"Captain," I said, catching up to him as he headed to the turbo lift after dismissing the teams.

"Yes, Number One?" He waited for me at the turbo lift and then he said, after I walked in, "Bridge."

I waited until the doors closed. "Are you okay?" I asked.

He said, "In terms of what? I was pleased with the simulation. Good work."

I did not roll my eyes. "Were you?" I said. "The air was so frosty in there I couldn't tell."

He looked at me. "Full stop," he said. "Do you really want to do this here, in the turbo lift?"

"Do what, Jean-Luc?" I asked. "I kind of figured that you're still upset, but I have no idea why." I paused, and then I said, "I know you're still irritated by your brother's response, but we've dealt with it, or at least I thought we had."

I reached out for him and he said, "May I remind you, Mr Riker, that we are both in uniform?"

I sighed. "There's no one else in the turbo lift, Jean-Luc," I said, "and you have it at full stop. No one is able to access it, unless they climb down."

"We are both due on the bridge," he replied, "or we _were_ both due on the bridge, three minutes past."

"If you're angry with me, why don't you at least say so?" I said. I was proud of myself for not using "mad." Actually, I was proud of myself for sticking to my guns, and not being intimidated by him; Jean-Luc at this level of "mad" usually left me a little weak at the knees.

He said, "I am not -" and then he stopped. I watched him pull himself together. "You're right," he said. "I am not happy with your behaviour this morning."

"Okay," I said. I didn't know what I'd done, but I could do this, even in a turbo lift on the way to the bridge.

"I thought," he said, "that you were flippant and immature, and I did not – nor do I ever – appreciate your walking out on me the way you did. Perhaps, William, you thought you were being amusing. I assure you that I was not. Amused."

"Okay," I repeated. "You're mad because I walked out? Or because you thought I was making light of the situation with your brother?"

"I am not," Jean-Luc said, his voice low, "_mad_. Although there have been instances, William, when you have been fully capable of driving me _mad_."

Well. Perhaps discussing this in the turbo lift had not been one of my better ideas. Somehow I doubted that my "I'm sorry for everything" would do any good.

"And we are now five minutes past due for the bridge."

I looked at him. I was about to say that he was fully capable of driving me _mad_ too – and that I'd been a hell of a lot closer to _mad_ than _he'd_ ever been – and then suddenly I thought about the way Deanna acted when her mother was on board, and how her mother was always carrying on –

I said, "You're right. I shouldn't have brought it up in the turbo lift. It's hardly an appropriate venue for this, is it?" I sighed. "I'm sorry that I upset you. But we can –" I tried to find the right word – "We can discuss this later, can't we? When it is more appropriate?"

"Yes," he said. Then he said, "Resume."

"Full stop," I said. I turned to him, and I put my hand on his shoulder hoping that he wouldn't brush me away. "Please," I said. "I don't want to go out on the bridge like this." I waited. I wasn't going to push him. It wouldn't be the first time we'd been on the bridge and he wasn't speaking to me, but surely it didn't have to be this way.

"Will," he said. He was still upset; the lines around his mouth and eyes didn't change, but he left my hand on his shoulder. Then he said, "I thought you had a rehearsal tonight."

"I do," I said, "but we already know the music. It's just a pick-up. I can ask Jai to cover."

"And your class with Rabbi Cardozo?"

"Is at the same time it always is, Jean-Luc," I said. "Sixteen hundred." I waited for him to say something, but he seemed a little lost. "I think," I said, bringing him to me, "that there is quite a bit more going on here than you're willing to admit." He let me hold him, which told me everything I needed to know. "Whatever you need me to do, Jean-Luc. You know this."

"I don't know that there is anything, Will," he said, "that you or I _can_ do. The source of my frustration, perhaps."

"We can," I said, kissing him, "make arrangements for René to come in such a way that it will be impossible for your brother to say no. You leave it to me."

He smiled then, the small one, and said, "As always."

I released him and said, "Resume."

Rabbi's Beginning Judaism class was held in the joint chaplaincy offices on Deck Seven. The rest of my day had been busy – we'd gotten new orders – and what with having no sleep and worrying about Jean-Luc, I'd seriously thought about skipping the class. However, there was another major holiday coming up – Passover – and because of my experience with the last holiday, I thought that not only should I be certain that I understood this holiday, but I should be aware that there could be triggers for me. That, of course, was a truly depressing thought; that I would have to spend the rest of my life monitoring the "stories" I heard and read for possible triggers. I have to say I was a reluctant attendant to Lior's class – for the first time. It made me wonder if perhaps this whole spirituality thing (which was something that McBride had advised me to look into) was just simply not for me.

Not only was I the last person to show up, but I was also seriously late, and I was feeling pretty frustrated about it too. I don't like to be late to anything – I suppose you could say that my father beat punctuality into me – and, coupled with the way the rest of the day had already been, I could feel that I was fairly thrumming with anxiety when I sat down. I'd settled down, after my recent setback, and so I was grimly determined not to allow any purchase whatsoever to my anxiety.

I'd missed the whole lecture part of the class. Lior had moved the class – all six of us – out of the one classroom and back into the dayroom, where everyone was seated around the low coffee table and having drinks and snacks.

"Sorry for being late, Rabbi," I said, taking a seat next to Lt Liatos.

"I know you're busy, Commander," Lior replied, smiling. "Don't worry about it. You can access the material on your padd; I've already sent it to you."

"Yeah," I said, "thanks."

I could see now that it wasn't drinks and snacks as usual on the table.

"This, Commander," Lior said, "is what we call a Seder plate. Arranged on it are the traditional ceremonial foods of Passover. We will, of course, be having the ship's first Seder – and its second – but I thought we'd go over the ceremonial aspects of the meal here. The reading material can be rather dry." He grinned. "And Tzippi makes a wonderful charoseth."

He paused, as if he were waiting for something. The six of us sat there, waiting for him to further instruct us, but he was quiet and smiling to himself. I could feel my anxiety building – whatever weird game Lior seemed to be playing, today was simply not the day for me to tolerate it. I could feel my hands start to tremble, and then I had to remind myself to breathe. I saw Liatos glance at me, and I thought, if she tells me to breathe I am going to explode.

Instead, I grinned. (Yeah, there you go, Riker. When all else fails.) "What does all this mean?" I asked.

In response, Lior grinned broadly. "And we have the innocent child," he said. "Thank you, Will. Indeed, what does this mean?" He looked at us. "That is the essence of this ceremony. Despite the fact that many Jews believe that Chanukah, with its lighting of the menorah and its many children's songs and its tradition of gift-giving, and Purim, with its children's plays and masquerades and gift baskets, are primarily holidays for children, it is this holiday – Pesach – that is for the Jewish child. Every single thing a Jew does on Passover, no matter how small, is a symbolic representation of the story that we are obligated to tell to our children on that first night. So we arrange this beautiful plate with its strange assortment of food; we have not one Kiddush cup on the table but three; where we have challah for all other ceremonial occasions, tonight we have only matzah; and where we never bring our bedclothes to the table, tonight we all have our pillows firmly wedged behind our backs."

I looked around and it was true; Lior had arranged bed pillows on all the chairs and couches.

"Our children look at all of this and ask the question that Will has asked," he continued. "In fact, in the Haggadah, the official story of the Seder, we have five symbolic children who represent the four different ways of asking the question concerning the meaning of the Passover Seder. If you will look at your padds, you will see that I have given you each a Haggadah to read. You should scroll to page twenty-five, where you will find our symbolic children." He waited for a moment, as we picked up our padds and found the page. "The first child is the Wise Child. This child understands that this ceremony must be extremely important. He asks the question, 'What laws and decrees and precepts have been commanded to us by HaShem concerning Passover?' The Haggadah tells us that we should respond to this child by explaining in great detail all the beautiful customs and ceremonies of the Seder, so that he can participate in this joy." He paused to take a sip of water, and then he said, "The next child is the Wicked Child. We would certainly remember if we had met this child. He is world-weary with cynicism. He has no love for learning, no understanding of other people, no empathy. He asks the question, 'What does all this mean to _you_?' Not to _him_, but to _you_ – he has separated himself from his parents, from his family, from his people. The Haggadah says that we should answer this child by saying, 'This is what the Almighty did for me, when I went out from Egypt. Had you been there with me, you would not have come.'"

He paused again, and Vara Liatos said, "Lior, that's pretty harsh," and Ellen Jantzen said, "How could you say something like that to a child?"

"Aren't these symbolic children?" That was Petty Officer Jaron Cone.

"Not if the whole purpose of the Seder is dedicated to children," Shula Daoud replied. "If you scroll down further, there's the innocent child next, just as Rabbi said to Commander Riker."

"And then the simple child," Michael Sattar added.

"So are we saying these harsh words to a real child or a symbolic child?" Lior asked. "Will?" He turned to me.

I sighed, because my hands were still shaking and this was not the day to do this to me.

"There are," I said quietly, "people – children – who are like this. Wicked, if you would use that term. You cannot accept them. You cannot bring them into your family. You can only distance yourself from them, and hope that they won't hurt you." I hadn't meant to say that, and I looked at the floor.

Everyone in the room – with the exception, perhaps, of Lt Jantzen, who was a new member of the crew, knew that I'd been ill. Everyone in this room who had been on the ship at the time – and that didn't include Lior or Lt Liatos – knew that we'd been endangered by a rogue branch of Starfleet that had been led, in part, by my father. And they all knew that my father had been killed.

"Not everyone is unfortunate enough to have a personal meeting with such a child," Lior said, "but they do exist. More common, however, is not the 'wicked' child but the 'rebellious' child, and perhaps that's a better translation of the intent of the Hebrew, here. The rebellious child – often a teenager –" Lior smiled "is likewise world-weary and cynical. Everything bores him. His parents bore him. His family bores him. This ceremony bores him. It's stupid. He'd rather be out with his friends."

Everyone had relaxed, because that concept was easier to swallow. After all, I thought, I was willing to wager that at least one of the occupants of the room had been just like that in their teens.

"You would say the same to him," Lior said. "This is what I do because of what the Almighty did for _me_, when I was brought from Egypt. Had _you_ been there, _you_ would not have come – because _you_ would have been out with your friends."

The tension faded into laughter.

"And now we come to Will's question," Lior continued. "That of the innocent child. 'What does all this mean?' The innocent child would like to understand what is going on, but often doesn't have the words to ask the question."

That was ironic, I thought.

"Then we have the Simple Child, the one too young to understand or formulate any words, let alone words to ask the question. We sing silly songs, we play games, we give this child sweets. Eventually the child will grow old enough to find his words."

"There's no fifth child here, Rabbi," I said.

"No," Lior agreed. "This particular Haggadah does not include the fifth child, and yet the fifth child is an important part of every Seder."

"Because?" I asked.

"Because," Lior said, looking directly at me, "the fifth child is the child who did not survive to ask the question."

I wasn't breathing.

Lt Daoud said, "The fifth child was added to the Seder in 1948, after the Holocaust of the twentieth century, and after the establishment of the state of Israel. The child commemorates the deaths of over a million Jewish children, in the camps, in the massacres, of starvation, of the war. While there were recorded some celebrations of Passover in the death camps – in Theresienstadt, for example – most children survived only days."

Lior walked over to me, and sat down beside me. "There is always the possibility of a trigger, Will," he said to me, as if I were the only person in the room. "You have to learn to prepare yourself. The material in these stories is ancient, and ancient times were not pretty times, especially for the Jewish people. One of the key elements of the history of the Jews, Will, is our suffering as a people. While we were certainly not the only people in the history of Earth to suffer, we perhaps became the symbol of suffering. Because, Will, _you_ understand what it is to suffer, you must be prepared that your reaction to these stories may be very different from other people's." He waited, and then he said, "Breathe, Will."

"I don't know that I can do this, today," I said.

"Then perhaps today is the day you need to do this," he answered. "You are probably the only person in this room with a direct connection to the fifth child, Will. This is why we honour that child. We honour that child with a moment of silence, in the middle of a festive meal, with friends, and family, and children, all around us. So that we will all remember the courage of such children, and never forget."

I was not going to cry, but he was right. My Rosie had been so very brave.

"Like Mordechai and Esther," I said. "In the _Purimspiel_."

"Yes," he replied. "Exactly."

I took a breath.

"Can you do this?" he asked me. "Or do you think you should take a break, now?"

I thought about Jean-Luc, and how upset he was, and how anxious it had really made me, all day. If I ended this now, I wouldn't have closure to this feeling – even though I wasn't sure what I was feeling – and I would bring that uncertainty back to him, who didn't really have the wherewithal to deal with my stuff when he was dealing with his own.

I took another breath and said, "I'm okay, Rabbi. It just took me by surprise, that's all. I told myself, before I came in here, that I would need to be aware of triggers."

Lior grinned. "Good for you, Will," he said. "You should honour the fifth child with remembrance, but not with overwhelming pain. As with most Jewish holidays, it is one sombre moment – and there are one or two others, in this particular holiday – amongst the joy."

He finished the class with a discussion of the foods on the Seder plate, and what each one symbolised, but I listened with only half an ear. In these months of my recovery, there were no coincidences – only events that happened which had meanings for me in my journey to wellness, as McBride would have said. The Seder that I'd had for Tu b'Shevat, with Ambassador Spock, when he'd explained to me the idea of the gateways to other levels of understanding which had been linked to the anniversary of my mother's death. The terrifying thought that I was a son of Haman from the story of Purim – and how that had led me to understand that I no longer had to carry the burden of my father's evil, or of Rosie's death. And now here was Rosie again – asking me to honour her in the middle of what was supposed to be a joyous celebration – a child whose life had meant so much to me and whose death had haunted me for almost thirty years – and as I stepped into the turbo lift and told the computer to take me to Deck Eight and my quarters with Jean-Luc, all I could think about was the coincidence of all these children – the symbolic children of the Seder; and of Rosie, and of René. And of the children Jean-Luc's brother thought that we would never have.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

I entered our quarters, surprised to find them dark and Jean-Luc not there. I was fairly sure that we'd agreed to meet up for supper and to discuss the whole situation after my class with Lior; in fact, I was certain I'd given up a rehearsal so that we could do just that. Nevertheless, Jean-Luc was not in our quarters, and, when I checked my padd, there was no message waiting for me either. Well, he often accused me of being childish – I sighed. It appeared that perhaps we were due for our first real quarrel.

Well – a deep subject, as my Uncle Marty would have said. If anyone could be blamed for my sense of humour, it would have to be him, with his bizarre mixture of puns and Norwegian folklore. I walked into our bedroom, set the lights at forty percent, and stripped down to take a shower. I couldn't walk past a mirror now without thinking of what I'd done, but I was pleased to notice that I had (finally) begun to bulk up a bit; that I no longer looked like a drowned rat, thanks to the body mass I'd lost when I'd been ill. I programmed a hot shower and stepped in, enjoying the pulsing of the water and remembering my astonishment when Jean-Luc had told me that he'd asked my Uncle Marty permission to marry me, of all the quaint and old-fashioned things. Marty's answer had been, predictably, silly – even though he was over a hundred years old he hadn't changed at all. He'd told Jean-Luc that it was all right with him if it was all right with me, and that was such – how had Jean-Luc put it? – such an _American_ thing to say. I remember thinking how offended Uncle Marty would have been by that; Alaskans had barely considered themselves American even when they'd belonged to America.

I finished my shower and found an old pair of trousers that actually fit me and slipped into them and an old shirt, and went back out into the dayroom. I didn't have to quarrel with Jean-Luc. He was the captain of this ship; he was a grown man. He could do whatever he wished. I walked into his library – I'd given up on thinking that it could be our office – and then I was seated at his desk and looking through his family album. I don't believe I'd ever seen it before, not in all the years I'd been aboard, but there was the crest and the herald of the title, right on the front cover. What a strangely old-fashioned thing to care about. And did that mean that it could only be passed from father to son, in the way royal titles had been passed so long ago? I turned each page slowly, watching the progression of the centuries, drawings and daguerreotypes, old photographs, digital images. All of them Picards, all of them working the land and making wine, or exploring, or inventing, scientists and writers. I'd known a little bit about my father's family history, but almost nothing of my mother's. Jean-Luc wanted us to go to Alaska after our stay in Sitges, but I didn't honestly know that I was capable of doing that. There was a part of me that wanted to see Mr and Mrs S, so that I could actually call them Uncle Marty and Auntie Tasya to their faces; and a part of me wanted to pay my respects to Rosie's mother, and to Rosie, and then there was the part of me that was terrified of seeing it all again; the cabin where I'd been tortured, the barn where Rosie had been killed.

I closed Jean-Luc's book and dimmed the lights, but found myself reluctant to return to the dayroom. My mother's cabin had become mine; apparently, it had been mine since the day she'd died, because she was a member of the tribe, and I was her son. I was, I'd discovered, a member of the tribe and not a sourdough after all. My mother's mother had been Mrs Shugak's sister, and that strange mixture of Aleut and Inuit and Russian that was part of Alaska's aboriginal heritage. My grandfather had been a sourdough, though, of Norwegian descent, just like my Uncle Marty had tried to tell me with all those years of Norse sagas and fairy tales. His name had been Tom Christianssen, and that's where my middle name of Thomas – a name I hadn't liked before, but didn't mind so much now – had come from. In fact, I'd been named for both my grandfathers – my father's famous father, William Totten Riker, a Federation ambassador, and my mother's fisherman father, Tom Christianssen. I thought about what I'd said to Jean-Luc, about having kids. I'd always thought that I would have kids, in as much as I ever thought about marrying and settling down. When I'd been engaged to Deanna, we'd gone so far as to discuss it. After Deanna, it always seemed so far in the future, something that I knew I wanted, but nothing I was prepared to think to seriously about.

My illness had changed everything. In the aftercare period, when I'd gotten through the worst of my symptoms but I was still in therapy every day, I'd confessed to my doctor that I was worried that I was too damaged to ever consider having kids. After all, look what my father had done to me. I didn't know what it was like to have a parent who was normal, did I? What if I'd become like him? Wasn't that what people said, anyway? Then when you'd been as badly abused as I had been, you were destined to repeat the abuse, especially if you were a guy.

McBride was a good man, and an even better psychiatrist; he used logic and intuition both to help me understand myself. I was good with children; it was why Jean-Luc had asked to me to run interference with kids when I'd first come on board. Even when I'd been little, I'd been the one that everyone had asked to help out. And the truth was that no one knew why my father had been the way he was. His parents had tried the best they could to deal with him, but eventually they'd just tried to keep him away from other people, including his own siblings, and in the end, that strategy had failed. McBride had helped me see that I wasn't like him at all. The psychological damage I carried because of what my father had done to me was damage to myself, for the most part, and not to others.

"Sitting in the dark, Will?" Jean-Luc asked.

I hadn't heard him come in. He was standing in the doorway of the library, the light behind him, so his face was in shadow, and I couldn't tell the mood he was in, although he was using that mild tone of voice he often reserved for me.

I shrugged. "I'd meant to get up," I said, "and then I was distracted."

"You were looking at my family album?" he asked, walking in.

"Yeah," I said, standing. "And thinking. Wondering if maybe someone has a book like this in my family. I'd like to see pictures of my mother, sometime."

"Have you changed your mind, then, about going to Valdez after our stay in Sitges?"

"No," I said. "I don't know. I think it's more important for you to go see your brother."

It was awkward. I just wanted to hold him, and have him hold me, but he'd been so mad (no, angry) with me before and I didn't know where he was now.

"Did you eat?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I didn't know where you were…and I guess I'm not that hungry."

I saw concern flicker across his face for a moment. "I was in the gym," he said, "working on some personal issues."

"Personal, or personnel?" I asked, trying to smile.

He sighed. "Have you said your affirmations today?" he asked.

Okay, maybe we _were_ going to quarrel. "I will agree that I shouldn't have walked out, as you put it, on you this morning," I said. "But the issue is yours, Jean-Luc, not mine, for once. I was just trying to show you that your brother was not the only person making assumptions in this."

"And what assumptions am I making, Will?" he asked.

"Perhaps," I said, "if we are really going to talk through this, we ought to go back in the dayroom. And if you haven't eaten yet, perhaps you should have something to eat first."

"Agreed," he said. He turned to walk out, and then he said, "I don't want to quarrel with you, Will. I'd much rather spend the evening being close to you. Especially as it has been a long and stressful day."

I took a breath, and then I grinned. "We don't have to argue about anything," I said. "Let's just have something to eat and relax. Maybe put some music on, okay?"

"Why don't you come here, then?" he said, and he pulled me into him, and then the feeling of being distanced from him was gone, and he was unbuttoning my shirt.

We got as far as the sofa in the dayroom; he'd dropped my shirt on the floor of the

library, and I'd pulled his off as he sat down; there was an urgency that precluded our usual slow dance of foreplay. I sank to my knees and took him in my mouth, feeling him grab my shoulders and then my hair, and then he was kissing me and saying all the things he always said to me when we made love. Usually the dayroom was awkward, because of the size of the sofa, but nothing mattered now except that we both needed to reconnect with each other; there was only the familiarity of his touch, and his mouth covering mine, as he filled me and brought us both to completion.

He collapsed beside me and I took him into my arms, and we lay like that for a while until the sofa and its size started cramping my legs. He kissed me and sat up, and said, "Why don't you shower, and I'll clean up in here?"

"All right," I agreed, and I stood up, and then I said, "Why don't you join me, and we'll clean up afterwards?"

"A more sensible solution," he agreed.

We'd settled for dinner from the replicator, and then I'd given him a brandy and myself a cup of decaf, and he said, "So how did your class with Rabbi Cardozo go?"

"It was a little difficult," I admitted.

"In what way?"

"I'd told myself that I should expect triggers," I said, "and that I should be prepared for them." I sighed. "Although it's depressing to think that I'll never be able to read a story without having to feel as if I have to be on guard."

"Surely," he said, "that will lessen as time goes by? You have only begun the process of healing, Will. It took a lifetime of pain to break you down. You can give yourself a few more months to recover, can't you?"

"I love you, Jean-Luc," I said.

"I know," he replied. "And I you. So what happened?"

"We're preparing for Passover, which is the next holiday," I began.

"Another holiday?" he said. "Every month, Will?"

I laughed, and then I shrugged. "My mother was raised Russian Orthodox," I said, "and they have an enormous liturgical calendar too. And I'm betting that your family was once Roman Catholic – and that liturgical calendar was also large, until most people stopped celebrating all the holy days of obligation because of the modern industrial world."

"You _have_ been doing your homework," he said, smiling. "So – Passover?"

"Yeah," I said, "it's the story of Exodus, and he was going over the symbolism of the Seder – that's the traditional meal – and the fact that the symbols are used primarily to help connect the children of the family to the importance of the holiday."

"Children again," he said.

"Yes," I said, "children again. There is a common theme here, Jean-Luc; one that's resonating for both of us this time, I think, the way Tu b'Shevat and Purim resonated for me. At any rate, there's a place in the retelling of the story of Passover for five different types of children to ask the question as to why the holiday is important – the wise child, the wicked or rebellious child, the innocent child, the simple child – and the child who didn't live to ask the question."

"Ah," he said.

"That child was added after the Holocaust of the twentieth century," I explained, "when six million Jews – a million of them children – were murdered simply because they were Jews."

"I see," he said. "And that was hard for you, Will, because of Rosie?"

"Yes," I said, "but Lior talked me through it. And it was okay, because our group is so small – there's only six of us, including me – and I guess we've sort of become friends. So it wasn't as if the First Officer was falling apart in front of the crew. It was okay," I finished. "I like the people in our group. They're good people."

"When is this holiday?" Jean-Luc asked.

"Next week," I said.

"And you are celebrating it?"

I grinned. "We are celebrating it," I said. "You've been invited with me to Lior and Tzippi's for first Seder, and then our small community will be having second Seder together."

"Two meals, Will?" he said, but I could see he was teasing me.

"Tzippi's a great cook," I said, "and I'm cooking too."

"Well, if _you're_ cooking," he agreed, and he took my hand. He was quiet and then he said, "You said this morning that I was making assumptions too, the same sorts of assumptions my brother was making. What did you mean by that, Will?"

I took a sip of my coffee. I'd known at some point that we'd get back to what we'd fought about – Jean-Luc was not someone to ever really let anything go – but I'd hoped that we could have discussed it in the morning.

"It seems to me, Jean-Luc," I said, trying to choose my words carefully, and knowing just how difficult it still was for me to express myself, "that your brother has assumed a few things about us. He's assumed that there's something wrong about us marrying, because for some reason he doesn't understand the nature of human sexuality. And he's assumed that because we are men, that ours would by necessity be a childless marriage."

"Yes," Jean-Luc said slowly. "I would agree that my brother seems to have made those assumptions. He is almost aggressive in the way he clings to the past, including ideas that were disproved centuries ago." He was quiet and then he said, "And what assumption have I made, Will?"

"Jean-Luc," I said.

"You cannot," he said softly, "be afraid of me in this relationship, Will. You can't. I know you don't like me to be 'mad' at you. But, Will – we won't survive together if we can't take risks and grow."

It was stupid, but I felt my eyes fill, and I looked away.

"Oh, Will," he said. He stood up and walked quickly over to me, and took me in his arms, and then he kissed the top of my head. "I love you, you silly boy. Even when I'm _mad_ at you, I love you. You know that, don't you? After all we've been through? That I will always love you?"

I let him hold me, the way he had when I'd been ill; when he would just press my face against his chest, and I would be comforted by the trace of his cologne and the beating of his heart.

"Yes," I said. "I know that, Jean-Luc."

"_Bien_," he answered. "Then what assumption have I made, _mon cœur_?"

"I think you've been comfortable with your own sexuality for a long time," I said, looking up at him. "In a way that I'm only beginning to discover, for myself. I always kept it hidden, that I enjoyed sex with men, because I thought somehow it made me like _him_."

"You have never had the capacity to be like him," Jean-Luc said, pulling me back into him.

"Yes, I have," I said, "and you and I both know it."

He sighed. "Your father was a paedophile," he said. "He had sex with children because it had nothing whatsoever to do with sex at all. If you've had some issues with aggression, Will – it came from the damage that had been done to you, and not from your intrinsic nature. Look at me," he said. "You are a kind, compassionate, funny man. Your first instinct is to bring people together, not to fight them. You only fight when you have to."

"Okay, Jean-Luc," I said. He was right and logically I knew it, but there was still nothing logical about my fears. I just had to maintain some sort of realistic understanding of them.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to overwhelm you. Tell me what it is you wanted to say. Please, Will."

"You surprised me," I began again, "when you asked me to marry you, but of course that would have been so natural to you, to want to marry the person you loved, and, when I thought about it, it was right for me too." I paused. "But you've made the same assumption that Robert has. You've assumed that ours must be a childless marriage, and you've assumed – perhaps because you have this bizarre notion that you're not good with kids – that I would be okay with that." I stopped again.

"Go on," he said, stroking my hair.

"But I'm not okay with that," I said. "I've always thought that at some point I would somehow manage to get a grip on myself, and get married, and have kids. Even after I realised that it wouldn't be with Deanna, I still thought that. I was afraid – because I had some notion that I would hurt my kids, the way my father hurt me. But that didn't change what I wanted, Jean-Luc. McBride worked with me on this, and da Costa has continued to work with me, when I've needed him too. I understand why I didn't turn out to be like him, even when there was the Billy-part of me to contend with. And I understand that it's erroneous and simplistic to believe that a person who's been abused will continue the abuse, as if it were some sort of genetic anomaly to be passed on."

"What are you telling me, Will?" he asked.

"There are many different ways that we can have children, Jean-Luc," I said, "and all of them are viable for us. I think I'll make a good dad – and I want to try. And you would be a wonderful father – and I don't think there's one person on this ship who would disagree with that." I remembered to breathe. "So your assumption – that you've failed your father and your grandfather and all those fancy Picards is wrong, Jean-Luc. We _can_ have children – and I hope we do."

"You have put a great deal of thought into this, Will," he said.

"You remember the Purim party?" I asked.

He smiled. "How could I forget that?" he asked.

"All those children came to you, Jean-Luc," I said. "Children know whom they can trust. And they trust you."

"And have you named these children of ours already, Will?" he asked, and I could see he was teasing me again.

"I was thinking about Worf for a boy and Lwaxana for a girl," I said.

He was still laughing when we went to bed.


	6. Chapter 6

6.

It was lunchtime, such as I took lunchtime anyway; it actually was thirteen hundred hours and I'd been up since oh-five hundred, thanks to certain people and their early morning proclivities. I'd had briefings all morning long with our various science departments as we put together what was required for our new mission, and then I'd reported to sickbay for my monthly check-up with Beverly. I'd gotten away with a "you're fine" and a scolding for not eating, and with the order that I'd better take myself to my quarters or Ten Forward for something to eat.

Jean-Luc was on the bridge so our quarters were empty, and I figured I'd just grab something from the replicator and have a few minutes to look over reports before going to the next bank of meetings. Our window for this mission was tight because of the wedding; we were scheduled for Betazed to pick up Mrs Troi and Admiral Laidlaw on the day before Cochrane Day; our wedding was scheduled for Cochrane Day in orbit around Betazed, and then we were to ship to McKinley Station for the upgrades.

I turned the lights to forty percent and walked over to the replicator. The stress of the timing of the mission, and Jean-Luc's irritability, and all of the details for the wedding was obviously getting to me. I stood at the replicator and even though there were an infinite number of possibilities of food to eat, nothing "sounded" good. The last thing I needed was a resurgence of my food issues, and I wondered what I could do to circumvent them. Then I grinned and tapped my comm. badge.

"Riker to Troi," I said.

"Yes, Commander?" Deanna answered.

"Are you free for a five-minute consult?" I asked, and couldn't help grinning, even though she wasn't there to see me.

"Of course, Commander," she replied, and I could just see her smiling back. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Dr Crusher told me to eat something," I said, "and I don't have a clue as to what to eat. I was wondering if you had a suggestion."

She was quiet and then she said, "But you don't like chocolate, Will," and I had to stop myself from laughing.

"Correction, Counsellor," I said. "I don't like hot fudge."

"I would order," she said, "coffee ice cream with warm chocolate sauce, sliced bananas, and whipped cream. You should enjoy that. The chocolate sauce is lighter than fudge, and it will bring out the intensity of the coffee flavour."

"Coffee ice cream," I said.

"Yes, Commander," she said.

She was about to giggle, I could feel it. "You're the boss," I said. "Riker out."

"Oh, Commander?"

"Counsellor?"

"Let me know what you think," she said.

"Of course," I said mildly.

I waited a beat, knowing full well that she couldn't do it – sure enough, I heard her giggle.

"I hate you, Will Riker," she said.

"Duly noted, Counsellor," I replied. "Riker out."

I ordered the ice cream and carried it over to my desk and sat down. I looked at it – surely there must be other people in the universe who don't like sundaes – and stuck a spoon into the coffee ice cream, avoiding both the chocolate sauce and the whipped cream, and then I wondered if coffee ice cream had caffeine in it. Perhaps I might like this concoction after all. I took a bite and thought it tasted like a coffee smoothie. Now that was an interesting idea, and I filed it away for the next time Guinan and I messed around in her kitchen. The ice cream was okay, and I guessed Deanna was right, because the chocolate sauce went with the coffee flavour just as she said it would. I decided I'd eat the thing, but there was no way I'd tell her that she'd finally found an ice cream sundae I actually liked.

I turned on the computer and heard the familiar ping of a message coming in.

"Riker here," I said.

"Commander, you have a communication coming in over subspace on a private channel," Data said.

"Thanks, Data," I answered. "It's probably another RSVP."

"RSVP?" Data asked.

"It's French," I said. "It means '_répondez s'il vous plaĭt_' or _please reply_. In other words, it's a response to our wedding invitations."

"Ah," Data said.

It sounded as if he wanted to say something else. "What is it, Data?" I asked.

"I have not given you my RSVP, Commander," he said.

"Data," I said patiently, "you're my best man. You don't have to give me an RSVP. Because if you don't show up, I'll kill you. Riker out."

"I understand, sir," Data said.

I took another bite of the ice cream and waited for the message to come through. When it did, it was someone I didn't think I recognised but I couldn't be sure; he was in civilian clothes in what was just an office of some kind. He looked up and then he grinned.

"Hey, Will," he said. "This is really weird. It's the first time I've ever done this."

I didn't know what to say for a moment – the last time I'd seen him it had been through the subspace communication I'd sent to Mrs Kalugin to let her know that I'd remembered what had happened to her daughter Rosie.

"Dmitri," I said cautiously. "How are –" I paused for a minute because I had to remember to use the right names " – Auntie Tasya and Uncle Marty?"

"They're good," Dmitri said. "They send their love. They wanted me to tell you that they're very happy for you, but I guess Uncle Marty will be sending you a communication at some point. I'm sure you realised that they wouldn't be able to attend. Auntie Tasya is having some real trouble walking, these days."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. "Is there anything that can be done?"

Dmitri shrugged. "She's over a hundred, as you know. She's just slowing down, that's all."

"Well, but barely over a hundred," I said. "But no, I didn't think they'd be able to come."

Dmitri smiled. "Uncle Marty still talks about when your captain comm'd him. It's been the highlight of his past six months."

"I bet," I said. I couldn't really imagine how that conversation had gone; Jean-Luc sending a subspace communication to ask my Uncle Marty "permission" to marry me.

"You sent me an invitation, too," Dmitri said, finally.

"Yeah, well," I said. "I didn't know we were family. And we were friends, once, I guess."

"We were, Will," Dmitri said, "friends. You saved my life, once."

I didn't say anything, because even though I still had a number of discs in a locked file cabinet, that didn't mean that I thought they'd stay there. They were supposed to stay there. They mostly did, even if I did have the same nightmare about finding Rosie over and over again. Saving Dmitri's life wasn't the bad memory; the punishment for saving his life was.

"It was nice of you," Dmitri said. "To send us the invitations. We talked about it. I've never been in space, you know. Most of us haven't. We just live the same lives people like us have always lived."

"You still go to salmon camp?" I asked.

"It's my boat, now," Dmitri said.

"I haven't fished in maybe six years," I said. "Since I was stationed on Betazed, anyway."

"Well, I'm sure you're really busy," Dmitri said. "Being a Commander and in space and all. I just wanted to tell you that I was honoured, that you'd invite us. I talked it over with Julia – my wife – and we'd like to come. When I looked into it, it wasn't that difficult to arrange. Apparently there's regular transport from San Francisco to Betazed. And it's not a big deal to fly from Valdez to San Francisco." He paused and then he said, "We won't be the only people you'll be picking up from Betazed. At least that's what I was told."

It took me a minute. "No," I said. "There's a party on Betazed. It's why we decided to just stay in orbit. My friend Deanna's mother, Admiral Laidlaw….Have you arranged someplace to stay in Rixx?"

"Not yet," Dmitri said.

"Just leave it to me," I said. "You'll let me know when you arrive on Mars for the ship to Betazed?"

"I'll send you our itinerary," Dmitri answered.

"Dmitri," I said, and then I stopped. It never occurred to me that he would come. I hadn't even intended to send him an invitation – it had been Jean-Luc's idea. I hadn't seen him since I'd left for the Academy. It had been twenty years. "Thank you," I said. "I – I didn't expect you to say yes. I don't know what I expected."

"No one blames you, Will," he said. "No one ever has."

"Mrs Kalugin – " I began.

"Is fine," he said, "and sends her love."

I didn't know what to say. "You're married?" I asked.

He smiled again, and this time he looked like the crazy Dmitri that I remembered. "Ten years," he said. "I think you'll like her. She's smart and she's funny."

I tried to smile back. "You have kids?"

"Two," he said. "Irina is eight. Looks just like her mom. And Will is six."

I could do this. I made myself breathe. "Will," I said.

"Yeah, it's a good name," Dmitri answered.

"Dmitri," I said.

"Yes?"

"When you get to Mars." There was a plan forming in my mind.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Jean-Luc has a nephew," I said. "René. He's almost ten. He'll be travelling alone, to Betazed. From Paris."

"You want us to accompany him from Mars?"

"Would you? I can pull in a favour and have someone take him from Paris to Mars," I said. "But I didn't know what I was going to do then."

"No problem," Dmitri said.

"That'd be great," I said. I hesitated, and then I added, "And – thanks. I don't know what to say."

"Just don't try to boss me around, Commander," he said – and he looked exactly as he did when we'd had our first fight –"and we'll get along just fine."

I grinned. "I have absolutely no jurisdiction over civilian guests," I said. "That's the captain's job, not mine."

"He'd better not try to boss me around either," Dmitri said. "I will see you, Will."

"Yeah," I said, and the screen went blank.

The ice cream had melted and I was no longer hungry, if I even had been. And I had thought maybe I'd watch Mrs Troi's reply, just so I could tease Jean-Luc about it at dinner, but now I was no longer in the mood. I'd done all that work with McBride, and I was continuing to do the work with Deanna, and with da Costa, and with Stoch, and with Lior. Even with Jean-Luc, if the truth were to be told.

Yet I was sitting here at my desk, and my hands were shaking, and my stomach was hurting, and I even thought I felt the ghost of an old ache in my head. _No one_ _blames you_, he'd said. _Mrs Kalugin sends her love_. He wanted to see me. All that work, and yet I was still undone by the proof that what I'd thought was true simply wasn't. There was a place where I could call home. I could go back there. I didn't have to be afraid.

"Commander Riker."

"Sir," I said.

"You were due at the staff meeting ten minutes past."

"Sir," I repeated.

How long had I been sitting here? I'd meant to send the communication to Jean-Luc's sister-in-law about René.

"Do you need assistance, Number One?" The tenor of his voice had changed.

"I don't think so," I said. "I just need a few minutes. Sir."

"Commander Riker," Beverly said.

I rubbed my eyes. "Riker here," I answered.

"Did you ever eat today?"

I glanced at the bowl of melted ice cream. "No," I said. "I meant to, but something came up…."

"On my way," Beverly said.

I sighed. I didn't necessarily need Dr Crusher. I could pull myself together. I didn't have to continue to allow this to impact my life. It was good news, wasn't it? Dmitri and his wife were coming to the wedding. They'd agreed to chaperone René, if I could convince Marie Picard to permit him to come. No one – not even Mrs Kalugin – blamed me for Rosie's death. I had a family who cared about me. So why was I feeling that I was about to lose control, that any second and I'd start to feel cottony, that harbinger of the flashback? Hadn't I spent weeks sifting through my memories and locking them up, putting them in the past, so they wouldn't intrude in my life anymore? Hadn't I dealt with the fucking things?

Take it one thing at a time, Will, I thought. Your hands are shaking because you haven't eaten in hours. That's a normal physiological reaction to low blood sugar. The solution to that is to eat something with sugar so your blood sugar doesn't crash, and then follow that with something of substance. You can do that. You can stand up and walk to the replicator. You can order a fruit smoothie. You have several programmed. It will work.

I stood up and felt myself sway. I wasn't breathing. Okay, I could do that too. I know how to breathe. I took one and then two breaths, not too deep so I wouldn't pass out, and I could feel the world righting itself again. See, I told myself. You can do this. You don't need Beverly and you don't have to terrify Jean-Luc. I walked slowly to the replicator and said, "Mango peach smoothie, cold," and took the drink that appeared and took a sip. I walked back to my desk, carrying the drink and sipping it slowly, and then forced myself to sit down slowly.

Symptom number two, I thought, my stomach. One of the things I'd learned was that my stomach pain wasn't about eating at all. It was resistance – resistance to change, because change was frightening, and when you've spend most of your childhood terrified, it's a hard habit to break. Well, the change was right in front of me, wasn't it? I'd assumed, as I'd told Jean-Luc, that no one from my "family" would come to our wedding, because – because I hadn't known they were family, until my treatment with Dr McBride. Because my father had been a monster, and had murdered my best friend, and he had involved me in her murder. Who would want to attend the wedding of someone like that? But the way I saw myself – the way my damaged self saw me – was _not_ the way other people saw me. Dmitri knew I was his cousin, and he was coming. Dmitri knew I needed to know that he didn't blame me, and that Rosie's family didn't blame me. How had crazy, fearless Dmitri become so kind, I wondered. So the stomach pain – the physical memory of the beatings – was telling me to be careful, to slow down, to keep things the same.

It's not about food, I thought, and I forced myself to continue to drink the smoothie. It's about the beating that was linked to Dmitri specifically. I knew where that memory was, and I knew what it was about. I could choose to look at it now, or I could deal with it when I had my next therapy session. Clearly the wise choice would be to do what McBride had told me, which was to use my reset button, and deal with this memory tomorrow, when I had my session with Deanna and da Costa. I took another breath, and I closed my eyes, and I visualised pausing this memory, taking the disc out, locking it back up in my cabinet, and then walking away from it.

I heard the door open, and both Beverly and Jean-Luc came in.

"I'm okay," I said hurriedly. "I don't need a hypo spray. I'm doing what I need to do."

Beverly said, "Mmmh," and continued to use the tricorder.

"See, I knew I needed something with sugar," I said. "I've drunk about half of it." I appealed to Jean-Luc. "I just needed a few minutes, to get myself back together," I said.

"What happened, Will?" he asked, coming around to me and resting his hand on my shoulder. "How is he, Beverly?"

"His blood sugar's low," she answered, "but drinking a smoothie was a good idea, Will, to combat that. His blood pressure is a little high, but not too bad –"

"I knew I was anxious," I said, "and I started my breathing exercises. I'm okay. I didn't expect this – and it took maybe too long to realise what was happening – but I've handled it. I have. I've handled it, Jean-Luc."

"All right, Will," he said. "I believe you."

I finished the smoothie. "So I'm okay, right? You just checked me out a few hours ago," I said. "I'm okay for the staff meeting, and I'll make sure to have a sensible dinner. Beverly?"

"Yes, Will," she said. "But why don't you take a snack with you to the staff meeting."

"Of course," I said. I was determined to show them both that I could do this, on my own, without help.

"What do you want, Will? I'll get it."

"No," I said, standing. I did not stray. "I can do this myself," I said, and whether I was saying it to them or saying it to myself, the results were the same. I walked to the replicator and ordered myself a protein bar, and then I said, forcing myself to smile, "Dmitri and his wife are coming to our wedding, Jean-Luc. It will be good to see him, after all these years."

I could do normal conversation. I could do all of this: Passover, and René, and Rosie's memory, and Mrs Troi, and our wedding.

"I've got the reports right here, sir," I said, grabbing my padd. "It shouldn't take too long to present them."

I strode out of our quarters and headed to the turbo lift. It seemed that William T Riker was back.


	7. Chapter 7

7.

"How are things settling down with your captain?" Tzippi Cardozo's head was buried in the cold storage unit, and so her voice was muffled.

I was acting sous chef, and so was chopping celery and parsley, carrots and onions, all of which had been grown in our ship's gardens.

"Things are fine," I said. Tzippi was a civilian, one of the many on the ship; she was one of the supervisors in our medical lab; I'd learned that she didn't feel constrained by Starfleet protocol in any particular way. I wasn't the First Officer of the ship to her; I was simply Will Riker, a guy who was one of her husband's students and sometime therapy client, and perhaps, one of her husband's friends.

"That," she said, bringing out two very dead chickens, "is not what I heard."

"What are you going to do with those?" I asked. Unlike many of the crew onboard, I didn't have a replicator-only view of food. In a small village in Alaska you are both predator and prey; I could catch and clean a salmon, pluck a chicken, and skin the hide off a moose. Of course the Federation view was that one didn't use animals for food anymore; but my village was a tribal village, and tribal villages were left primarily alone.

"I'm making the stock for the matzah ball soup," she said.

"You mean you're making chicken soup with matzah balls," I countered, grinning. We could talk about food, and maybe she'd forget her question about "my captain".

"We're going to have one soup with the chicken in it," she replied, "and one soup without."

"Then why not make the latter with vegetable stock?" I asked.

"Because Passover is not necessarily a vegetarian mean," Tzippi answered, "and matzah balls taste better in chicken stock."

I'd finished dicing the carrots and then celery.

"Don't dice the onions," she said. "Leave them whole for now. And make sure I've got the stalks with leaves."

I watched with interest as she prepared the chickens, rubbing them with salt and cleaning them, and then as she added the water, and the celery with their leaves, a couple of whole peeled carrots, parsley, and the whole onions. She waited until the broth began to boil, and she added a chicken to each pot.

"Is that going to be enough?" I asked.

"For first Seder, yes," she answered. "For second Seder, no. I'm not the only one making soup, though. We'll have enough."

"Okay," I said. "What do you want me to do with these?"

She was adding salt and pepper to the broth, and then she turned it down to simmer. "Just place them in the containers," she said to me. "We'll add them to the soup later." She paused, and wiped a strand of red hair from out of her eyes. "How good are you at chopping apples?" she asked, smiling.

"I can chop anything," I said. "I used to help my Auntie Tasya in the kitchen. Chopping is my specialty."

"Here," she said. "I don't know where Guinan got these apples and I don't care. They're priceless. Core them, peel them, and dice them."

"Okay," I said. "What are we making?"

"The _charoseth_," she answered. "It's an old family recipe. Apples, oranges, raisins, dates, cinnamon, honey, wine. You'll see."

"The food that represents the mortar that was made into bricks," I said, remembering Lior's lesson on the Seder plate.

"That's right," Tzippi answered. "As with the soup, it tastes better if you prepare it ahead of time."

I started to core the apples while she got the other ingredients together. It occurred to me that there should be other people here helping and then Tzippi said, "I heard that your captain was pretty upset."

We were back to _my captain_ again. I said, cautiously, "Where did you hear that?"

"Will," she said, stopping and looking at me. "He's coming to Seder with you, isn't he? Both nights?"

"He said he was," I answered.

"And you've invited us to your wedding, next week?"

"Yes," I said.

"So you're friends, yes?"

I thought about the hours that Lior had spent with me, trying to help me to understand that I didn't deserve to carry the burden of my father's guilt anymore. "Yes," I said. "We're friends."

"And you've been married before, have you?" Tzippi asked me. She'd taken two different bags of raisins, dark ones and golden ones, and then set them to soak in bowls of red kosher wine.

"No," I answered. "I've never been married before."

"Ah," Tzippi said. She was now peeling oranges. "Weddings are very stressful. Everyone tells you that this is the happiest time of your life – or at least," she said wryly, "they tell women that. But the truth is that it's a major pain in the _tuchis_, this happy time, because it's a huge juggling act of all the things you've got to do and all the people who are involved and it brings up so much _schmattes_, especially in families."

I wasn't exactly sure what she was talking about. "I think I need the universal translator," I said.

She laughed. "Of course you don't know Yiddish," she said. "Yiddish is an old European language of Jews. _Tuchis_ – that, my dear, is your arse. _Schmattes_ – it means mess. Like when you debone a chicken."

"So weddings are a pain in the ass because you have to deal with your families' mess," I translated.

"Yes," she answered, "and I heard that your captain's brother is not coming to the wedding."

"And you also heard he was upset about it?" I asked.

"The whole ship knows he's upset about it," Tzippi answered. "So what, William, do you intend to do?"

I sighed. "His brother can't come because it's spring," I said, "and he has to do something – I don't know what – with the new vines. And he says his wife won't come without him, and René's too young to come by himself."

"And of course, modern farming being what it is," Tzippi said, "these vines have to be personally tended to by the vintner lest some evil befall them."

I was quiet, and then I started to laugh. "Something like that," I agreed.

She took the apples and the oranges and put them in a bowl together and began mashing them together. "Here," she said, "you can chop dates," so I started chopping dates.

"So what do you intend to do?" she repeated.

"I thought I could see if Marie – that's Robert's wife – might be willing to send René anyway, if I provided suitable chaperones for him," I said. "I have a lieutenant to take him from Paris to Mars, and then my cousin Dmitri and his wife will meet him there and take him to Betazed. He'll stay with them, in Rixx, and then shipboard, with us."

"But?"

"But it's more complicated than that," I said.

"Of course it is," she answered. "It's family, but worse than that, it's brothers. Which one is the older one?"

"Robert is," I said.

"So it's about the baby of the family," she said. "Naturally." She laughed. "You should listen to Natan on the subject of Asaf."

"Asaf is a baby," I said. "And the girls are in between."

"That makes absolutely no difference, believe me," she said. "Are you planning to have children?"

"You don't pull any punches, do you?" I asked.

"I am the rabbi's wife," she answered. "It's a very important position. What I find out in the kitchen, the rabbi needs to know in the _shul_."

"I'm not one of your members," I reminded her.

"Lior has adopted you," she said, "which makes you one of ours."

Oh. No one had ever "adopted" me before. I hadn't realised I was even up for adoption.

"Robert objects to our marriage," I said, "or at least Jean-Luc thinks he does. It has to do with us not being able to have children, and some old-fashioned idea of a title. I don't understand it, myself. Seems to me that Robert is just being spiteful, and Jean-Luc is allowing him too much power. Anyway, I'd like to have kids," I said. "I think I'm almost to the point where I believe I wouldn't hurt them."

"Oh, Will," Tzippi said, and she hugged me, suddenly and hard. "Parents hurt their kids all the time. They don't mean to. They don't want to. They try not to. But it happens and it's all part of being a family."

It was funny, because even though I knew that _she_ knew that that wasn't what I meant, her answer meant more to me than I could explain. Of course I would hurt my kids. It was normal and sometimes unavoidable. I decided that there were worse things out there than to be adopted by Lior and Tzippi Cardozo.

"What should I do?" I asked her.

"Arrange for René to come, just as you said," she replied.

"She doesn't know anything at all about me," I said. "That was the other thing which upset Robert. Jean-Luc just sent the invitation. He'd never mentioned me."

"That must have hurt," Tzippi said.

I looked at her in surprise. She was right. It had hurt. Why wouldn't he have mentioned me, when he'd been corresponding with René and Marie all along?

"I'm sure he had his reasons, Will," she said soothingly. "But you need to tell her about yourself, so she'll agree."

"She can look me up," I said. "The information isn't hard to find."

"Will. You need to tell her about your illness and how serious it was. It will explain Jean-Luc's behaviour, and why it's so important for his family to be here."

"It will?"

"Yes. He spent three months thinking he was going to lose you, when he'd only just found you. He's still very protective of you, even now." She poured the wine-soaked raisins into the bowl. "Perhaps he never mentioned you because he was afraid Robert would hurt you, the way Robert hurt him."

"How could he hurt me if he doesn't know me?" I asked.

"You are asking for logic where there is none," she said. "And he has hurt you. He's upset your captain."

I was silent, and then I nodded. "The thing is," I said, handing her the dates, "we don't quarrel. We're two completely different people – you couldn't find two more completely different people than _my captain_ –" I grinned "—and me. Our ages, our family backgrounds, our ethnic backgrounds….But we complement each other. I make him laugh. He makes me feel safe." I stopped, because I hadn't meant to be where I was – talking about Jean-Luc to her. I didn't even really talk to Deanna about him. I took a breath. This is what normal life is, I told myself. You are living your life, the way other people do. Making food. Talking to a friend. You can do this.

"You don't quarrel," Tzippi offered.

"No," I said. "We don't, not really. He gets frustrated with me, with my inability to communicate, sometimes, and with my anxiety. Not so much now, as before. I'm better, now, than I was."

"Yes. You are. Much better, Will," Tzippi said. She poured two heaping tablespoons of honey into the mixture, and then topped it with cinnamon. "Here," she said. "Try this." She dipped a spoon into the stirred mixture and handed it to me.

It was a surprising mixture of sweet and tangy, with a burst of citrus and wine.

"Like it?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "This is really good."

"It will be even better tomorrow night, after it's had a chance to combine all night," she promised.

"When do you want me for the salmon?" I asked.

"Seder begins at eighteen-thirty," she reminded me. "I'll need you around sixteen-thirty. The salmon should be last, yes?"

"Uh-uh," I said. "You don't want overcooked salmon." I'd imported salmon for the wedding and figured in a little extra, for the Seder.

"You were interrupted," she said.

"Well, it's just that we have," I said. "Quarreled. Or come close enough to it." I sighed. "I'm glad to support him. I just wish I understood what was going on."

"And so we are back to your sister-in-law," Tzippi said. "Men don't think women understand anything, sadly, even in this day and age. Of course we understand much more….You're right to think something else is going on, because it is. Marie is the one to tell you, I'm sure of it. If you open up to her – explain how ill you've been, how it affected Jean-Luc – how much it would help him, if they all came…She will respond, how could she not? And she'll tell you what you need to know. Brothers don't fight each other all their lives unless something happened to set it up that way."

It made me think of Dmitri. My father had set me up to believe I was all alone in the world, that I had only _him_ to turn to, my abuser. The fights I'd had with Dmitri, the estrangement from the village, the lack of confidence and the feeling of terrible isolation – that was engineered, all of it, by him. Had something – or someone – engineered the animosity and bitterness between Jean-Luc and his brother? Maybe I was biased by my own personal experience, but what Tzippi said made perfect sense.

"You suggested kitchen duty so you could talk to me, or Lior suggested it so you could talk to me?" I asked.

Tzippi smiled. "Whether you talk to the rabbi, Will," she answered, "or you talk to the _rebbetzin_, you're talking to the same person."

"Like the captain and the first officer," I said, laughing. "If my kitchen duties are done, Rabbi, I have a communication to send."

"Don't delay any longer, Will," Tzippi said. "You only have a week to straighten this mess out."

"_Schmattes_," I said. "I've had tighter timelines than this to deal with. The last time Jean-Luc used the auto-destruct sequence."

She squeaked in outrage. "He's used auto-destruct more than once? Is he crazy?"

"Welcome to the _Enterprise_," I said. "Things are always interesting, here."


	8. Chapter 8

8.

_Dear Marie,_ I wrote, and then I stopped. What the hell could I say? I could write a killer report on a systems failure in engineering, or a successful away team mission, and my personnel reports could make or break a career – but what the hell could I say to the woman who was Robert's wife? It was frustrating, because I'd almost come to accept my "inarticulation," as Jean-Luc called it, in conversation, but I'd never had an issue writing something before. Okay, Riker, I thought. You can do this. If you can write a kind personnel report on Reginald Barclay, you can write anything. _Dear Marie, _I wrote, _on the Enterprise I'm Commander William T Riker, First Officer, and I have been for almost seven years. You and Robert can call me "Will," as most of my friends and family do. I guess most people would introduce themselves over subspace – but I'm writing because I wanted to talk to you, from one non-Picard to another. It took me a couple of years to get to know Jean-Luc – although I'm fairly sure I loved him from the my first meeting with him, when he ordered me to manually dock our saucer section after a "scrape" that he'd been in. He doesn't let people get too close to him, but I wore him down. In the response Robert sent us it seemed to me as if he'd been hurt by Jean-Luc's not mentioning me, and when I thought about it, I could see his point. I mean, when your brother falls in love and offers marriage to someone, he ought to tell you. I don't have any siblings – my mother died when I was two – but I've a large extended family in Alaska (where I'm from) and I know how it's supposed to work. There is a reason, and I thought perhaps that you should know. What you tell Robert I'll leave to you. Jean-Luc admires you – he's talked of you, and René, often, so I feel as if I know you, a bit. I think, Marie, that you need to know me. _

_Almost six months ago I was climbing a mountain in the middle of avalanche season on our ship's holodeck with all the safety protocols turned off. When that didn't work, and the pain and the night terrors and the flashbacks and the hallucinations reached the point that I could no longer endure them, I broke the supposedly unbreakable mirror in my quarters and tore open my arms, from my elbows to my wrists, severing the tendons, and then I tried – but didn't really succeed, because of the amount of blood loss – to slit my throat. Jean-Luc saved my life that afternoon, by realising just how ill I was and rushing emergency medical attention to me. We'd only just started our relationship, and, while he knew there was something wrong, he had no idea of the extent of my illness – nor the extent of the childhood abuse which was its cause – until my suicide attempt. The official diagnosis is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I had the worst kind, the kind that kills. Every day during my long decline and then as I recovered Jean-Luc spent every moment he could with me, caring very little about his privacy or his reputation, as he coaxed me and cajoled me and ordered me to put myself back together and live. I'm not telling you this because I want you to feel sorry for me, or to pity me, or to make you uneasy. I'm simply letting you know that there are reasons why Jean-Luc didn't mention me or our relationship. Not only was he protecting my privacy during my illness but we were also under an extreme threat from the group my father worked for, a group that was trying to destroy Starfleet and the Federation and everything we stand for. I did want to tell you that there was a point – and it really wasn't all that long ago – where I had lost almost thirty kilos and my kidneys were failing and I was in congestive heart failure – when I was ready to die. I'd asked Jean-Luc to stop my treatment and to give me the chance to die with some dignity. His response was that he would – if that's what I truly wanted – tell my doctors to stop my treatment. (And that is so typical of him, that he would be willing to lose me because he believed in my right to choose my own time of death.) But he asked me to consider the possibility of a future with him, on the Enterprise and beyond the Enterprise, as his partner. It was, when I look back, his offer of marriage to me – one he reiterated some months later when I was well into my recovery. I'm telling you this because you, and Robert, and René – his family, the ones he loves – need to know that we are marrying because it is as if we have always been together. It took us some time to figure that out – I'd been on this ship for almost seven years – but it's true. We're not taking a term marriage. We're discussing the possibility of having a family of our own. I will be a member of your family – you will be a member of my extended family in Alaska – and the children we have will be René's cousins. I was going to ask you to send René on to us – I'd arranged for him to picked up by the daughter of a friend of mine, Lt Rowan DeSoto, from LaBarre for the trip to Paris and then on to Mars, and from there my cousin Dmitri Gorin and his wife Julia were going to chaperone René to Betazed where he would join us here on the Enterprise – but I've changed my mind. You need to be here. Robert needs to be here. Not for me, but for Jean-Luc, who has been through so much this year and who desperately needs his family to recognise how important this is to him. I don't know what else I can tell you, but I hope that at least, once you and Robert read this, you will understand what you are turning away. He's too proud to beg you to come, but I'm not. Please. I would like to meet you, and Jean-Luc would like the trouble between himself and his brother to end. I love him, so I would like it to end too. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope I hear from you soon – _and I closed it, simply, _Will_.

"This is the second time," Jean-Luc said to me, "that you have dressed me up in civilian clothes and taken me to a function I barely understand."

"At least," I said from the head, where I was drying myself off, "you're wearing some colour tonight."

He was wearing the dark green tunic I'd gotten him. I heard him sigh.

"There's nothing to understand," I said, walking out into our bedroom and trailing wet footprints on the deck. I looked down at my feet and grinned.

"You are a cheeky devil," he said. "You're cleaning that up – _and_ you're putting some clothes on – or we're going nowhere, mister."

I wiped the deck with the towel and placed it into the receptacle. "You know," I said, "for a guy who never _ever_ got any, you certainly have a one-track mind."

"And you, _mon cher_," he said, coming up behind me, "are an exhibitionist and a tease."

I looked at him in surprise and then I laughed, because I could see that he was barely able to keep from laughing himself. "It's just that," I said, wrapping my arms around him, "I'm proud of my new, improved self. I'd gotten – what did Deanna call it? – _content_ before."

He did laugh, then. "I don't think, Will," he said, "that you had to lose thirty kilos, and terrify everyone, and take down an arm of Starfleet just so you could look better."

"My weight loss plan was too extreme?" I asked.

"You are incorrigible," he said. "Put some clothes on, for God's sake, or we'll have Mrs Cardozo wondering where you are."

"Oh, all right," I said, kissing him. "If that's an order. Sir."

"It most certainly is, Mr Riker," he replied. "I am fully capable of self control, but even _I_ have my limits."

I let him go and got dressed, because he was right; I'd promised Tzippi that I'd be right back to finish the salmon and since it was the main course, I didn't want anyone to be disappointed.

"I suppose," Jean-Luc said, as we left our quarters, "that I shall have to endure wearing that hat again."

"_Kippah_, Jean-Luc," I said. "It's called a _kippah_, and no, you don't have to wear one if you don't want to."

He eyed me suspiciously. "And I wore one the last time because?"

I grinned. "I just wanted to see you in one," I said. "You looked adorable, Jean-Luc."

"It is a good thing, Mr Riker," he said, stepping onto the turbo lift, "that Starfleet does not condone corporal punishment."

"It could," I said, trying not to laugh.

He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "Don't tempt me."

"Deck seven," I said. I looked at the deck and bit my lip; then I looked up at him, trying not to grin. "I just never knew there was a kinky side to you, Jean-Luc," I said. "We could –"

"Mr Riker."

"Sir."

"You have said quite enough."

I sighed. "Aye, sir," I said.

The turbo lift stopped and he stepped out, with me behind him. He did look good, in the green. I took an extra step to catch up to him, and then I took his hand. Surprisingly, he allowed me to hold it, and we walked down the corridor to Lior and Tzippi's quarters. I hit the door chime, and was pleased to see it was Vara Liatos who let us in.

"Vara," I said. "Jean-Luc, this is Lt Vara Liatos of stellar cartography. She's in Lior's class with me."

Jean-Luc paused, and then he said, "Vara. I've heard good things about you."

We stepped inside to the dayroom, where the rest of my class had gathered and were being entertained by Natan and Aliza Cardozo. I said, "Jean-Luc, here's the rest of my class with Lior. Lt Shula Daoud – Lt Commander Michael Sattar – Lt Ellen Jantzen – Petty Officer Jaron Cone."

"I am pleased to finally meet you," Jean-Luc said, and I kept my smile to myself, because he was using his diplomatic voice, and it was working, as it always did.

"I'm in the kitchen, Jean-Luc," I said, and I felt just a little bit bad for leaving him in a room full of strangers who only knew him as "the Captain" and two little kids.

He nodded, and I strode into the kitchen, because I was anxious about the salmon being overdone, but I needn't have been – both Tzippi and Guinan were there, and everything was completely under control.

"There you are, Will," Tzippi said. "Everything's in order, but we could definitely use an extra pair of hands."

"Where's Lior?" I asked, taking the bowl of carrots from her. "These are the honey-ginger carrots?"

"Yes," Tzippi said, "you know what to do?"

"Of course he does," Guinan said. "There's very little in a kitchen he doesn't know how to do."

"Hey, Guinan," I said. "I'm good," I said to Tzippi. "You want me to check on the salmon?"

"Will," Guinan said, "the salmon is fine."

"Okay," I said. I trusted her; if she said it was fine, it was.

"Will and I are opening a restaurant together when he retires," Guinan said to Tzippi. "Guinan and Will's."

Tzippi laughed. "What a great idea," she said. She was forming matzah balls and dropping them into boiling salt water. "Where is this restaurant supposed to be? San Francisco?"

"No," I said. "Jean-Luc wants us to retire in Spain. Barcelona, maybe."

"Not France?" Tzippi asked, glancing at me.

I said, "I don't know about Guinan's – but my culinary standards are not up to those in France."

"I've never been to Barcelona," Guinan said. She was peeling what was supposed to be a version of asparagus.

"We're spending several days there," I said, sliding the peeled carrots into the sauté pan. "I'll scout a venue."

"You could always go to chef school, Will," Guinan said.

I grinned. "Only if you come with me," I said. "I don't know that I have the patience to relearn how to crack an egg."

Tzippi said, "Why would you have to relearn how to crack an egg?"

"It's all in the wrist," I said seriously, grating the ginger over the carrots and then stirring them.

"Oh, you," Tzippi said. "I don't know how your captain tolerates your foolishness."

I heard Guinan snort in laughter behind me.

"_My captain_," I said with some dignity, "tolerates my foolishness just fine."

Lior appeared in the doorway. "Are we ready to start the show?" he asked, smiling at Tzippi.

"We are indeed," she replied.

There were place cards on each plate – no replicated plates here, this was real china, something I hadn't seen since the last time I'd been in San Francisco – and Jean-Luc and I found our seats. I had Shula Daoud to my left – she was left-handed, so she was at the end of the table – and I just rolled my eyes at Tzippi as I sat, because she'd placed her daughter Aliza, aged seven, next to Jean-Luc. I guided Jean-Luc to his seat, and then left him to help serve; when everything was set, I slid in next to him and took his hand under the table. He'd mutely taken the _kippah_ he'd been handed when he'd walked into the dining area, and now it was perched on his head, decorated in blue and silver with what looked like hand painted doves.

"Aliza has been explaining the beginning of the ceremony to me," he said.

"I'm sure," I answered. I didn't laugh, because I didn't want him to think I was responsible for the seating arrangements.

Lior said, "_Shalom_. Welcome to our first Seder on the _Enterprise_. We've all met, so I will begin the ceremony." He nodded to Tzippi, who stood. "We will light the candles for the holiday, and recite the blessings."

We all stood, and as Tzippi lit each candle those of us who knew the blessing sang it in Hebrew, and then Lior translated it into standard. The first bottle of wine was passed around and each glass was filled, although I noticed that the children got mostly grape juice, with just a few drops of wine. Lior lifted the Kiddush cup, and then in succession we went through all the blessings – the wine for wine and its sanctification, the _Shechecheyanu_, for the season, and then the symbolic washing of the hands, which Lior, as our leader, did for all of us.

The ceremony was exactly as Lior had explained to us in class, except that we were all participating, and any time someone had a question, or Lior thought there was some background we should know, or some other custom from some other place or time, or there was a song the children wanted to sing, then the ceremony stopped, and we all talked about what was happening. It reminded me of the gentle way Ambassador Spock had guided me through the Tu b'Shevat Seder, and yet with all the different voices, and all the different stories, it was as if I'd been transported somewhere else, somewhere far away, a different time, a different land. And yet I never once felt that I didn't belong, or that I was a _stranger_ in the sense that the word was used in both the Torah and Jewish custom. I glanced at Jean-Luc, listening intently to Aliza as she explained why we were dipping the fresh parsley – grown in our own garden on the ship – in salt water, according her the same charm and respect he gave to me. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, and I made a mental note to be properly appreciative when we returned to our quarters.

I was surprised, then, when Lior handed me the ceremonial middle matzah – the _afikomen_ – broken in half and wrapped in a napkin.

"You want _me_ to hide it?" I asked.

"Of course," Lior said, laughing. "The kids always know where I hide it. Maybe if you do it, they'll have to work harder."

I turned to Jean-Luc. "You want to help?" I asked.

"Go ahead, Captain," Aliza said encouragingly. "I bet you and Commander Riker will do a good job."

"Are you sure you want me to do a good job?" I asked her. "After all, the point is for you to find it."

"If you pick a hard place to hide it," Aliza said, glancing at her older brother, "I'll have a better chance of finding it than _he_ will."

I remembered what Tzippi had said about siblings, and I laughed. "But what about Asaf and Ofrit?" I said. "Surely they should get a chance too."

"I will help Ofrit," Aliza said, grandly.

"No, you won't," Ofrit answered. At five she was still barely able to see over the table. "I can do it by myself."

"Spoken like a youngest child," Jean-Luc said. "Come on, Number One. We've got a mission to accomplish."

We agreed to keep the _afikomen_ hidden in the dayroom, and finally Jean-Luc found an appropriate place. There were several holo pictures of the children on one of the tables, and Jean-Luc was able to insert the _afikomen_ behind Ofrit's frame. We returned to the table triumphant – just in time for the singing of the four questions.

"_Mah nishtana hailala hazeh mikol haleylot_?" Natan sang, followed by Aliza and then Ofrit, and, finally, Shula Daoud singing the fourth question; then Lior led the discussion about the four questions and their meanings and the symbols on the Seder plate.

The five children of the Seder were next. I'd been assigned to read the Innocent Child, for which I was grateful, and I read, "The simple child is naïve and innocent. This child would like to know what Passover is about, but is shy, or just doesn't know how to ask; instead, saying merely, What is this? In response, the parent should explain that, with a strong hand the Almighty brought us forth from Egypt, out of the house of bondage."

Lior recited the prayer for the Fifth Child. Jean-Luc reached for my hand and I let him hold it. I wasn't upset; I was grateful, for this chance to think about the children that were gone, to have a moment where I could remember what was good about Rosie, thinking how much she would have liked to participate in this ceremony, even if it wasn't her own; how she would have liked the songs and the funny food and the hiding of the _afikomen_. I noticed that Jean-Luc was looking pensive and it occurred to me that maybe it wasn't on my behalf; he was upset and it wasn't about me. It wasn't about Rosie – and I thought that what Tzippi had said to me was right. There was something – or maybe someone – that had come between Jean-Luc and his brother. The very first thing Jean-Luc had said to me, after he'd ordered me to dock the saucer section, still stood out in my mind because it was such a strange request – one I'd never had from a captain before, even given that the _Enterprise_ was a galaxy class ship and my other ships had not been – he'd asked me to make sure that the image he projected to the children and their families aboard this ship (and he'd referred to children as "the little monsters") was one of "geniality." _I'm not a family man_, he'd said. I could see Aliza was watching him too – clearly she was her mother's daughter. Had someone in his life been a monster? I looked at him again – his neutral expression had been set firmly on his face and he'd only relaxed when we'd moved on, in the service.

I wondered, then, for the first time, if it had been his own issues which had attracted him to me.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

We were walking slowly back to our quarters. Jean-Luc was tired; I could see it in his eyes and in his overly-erect posture. I sighed, quietly, because he'd become so attuned to my moods, and I didn't want to add to whatever it was that was continuing to bother him. I'd had an enjoyable time; the meal had turned out great, the salmon perfect; which gave me great hope for dinner next week. I'd enjoyed the surprisingly silly moments – during the Ten Plagues, for example, when there was a sudden appearance of a real plague of multi-coloured toy frogs and we were treated to Ofrit's solo about frogs in Pharaoh's bed – even Jean-Luc had been won over by that. There were many moments like that in the Seder, solemnity – the dipping of droplets of wine to symbolise empathy with the Egyptians over the Plagues, the admonition against rejoicing to the angels as the Egyptians drowned – surrounded by these moments of great silliness, the frogs, and the grasshoppers; the endless rounds of _Dayenu_ and the search for the _afikomen_. True to form Aliza had found the _afikomen_, but she had included Ofrit in her bargaining; at that point, Asaf was already asleep in his mother's arms. I'd found the final moments of the Seder quite moving, as the children stood before the open doorway and invited the ancient prophet Elijah to arrive in a hauntingly minor key.

We stopped at the turbo lift and I said, lightly, "I think my favourite part was the frogs. What about you, Jean-Luc?"

The doors opened and we stepped in. "Deck eight," he said. "The salmon was delicious, Will. Is that the recipe you're using for the reception dinner?"

"No," I said. It wasn't often that he deflected the conversation with me. "No, I'm using my Auntie Tasya's special glaze. But Guinan and her staff will be preparing the meal." The doors opened, and I followed him out into the corridor. "Yeah, I was pleased with the salmon tonight. I was worried it would get overcooked."

"Even though," he said, "I've not had a meal like that before, I enjoyed it very much." He smiled at me, but it didn't reach his eyes.

Had Dr McBride ever prepared me for this? He hit the chime and we walked in, or rather he walked in, and I followed. I wondered just how far I could push this conversation before the captain appeared.

"But was there a part of the Seder that you liked, Jean-Luc?" I asked again, trailing him into the bedroom.

"Lights, forty percent," he said. "I don't know about you, but I'm knackered, Will." He sat down in the armchair and began to pull off his shoes.

I sat down on the bed. I looked at the floor, and then I clasped my hands, and then I looked at him as he sat there in his stocking feet. "It's not like you," I said, "to not answer a question – twice. Or to deflect the conversation – and talk about food. You're bored to tears when I talk to you about food."

"Will – " he began.

"You said we were equals, in this relationship," I said. He'd called me "mulish," once. I didn't know where I got my stubbornness from – my mother? The grandmother I never knew? Tom Christianssen? I have no idea, but I could feel my jaw harden and my shoulders straighten.

He'd set his face in neutral. "We are," he said, and his voice was mild – oh, but I knew _that_ mild tone of voice. That was the tone of voice before the glacial rage appeared.

"Shouldn't that mean that you'll listen to me, in the same way that I listen to you?" I asked. "Has my illness eroded all the respect you once had for me?"

He was completely still. "That is out of order, Mr Riker," he said.

"I don't think," I said, "that you should be able to pull that card in a marriage of two equals. Mr Picard."

"I am the captain of this ship," he said.

I breathed in. "But you are not the captain in our relationship, Jean-Luc," I said softly. "Not anymore." There was a flicker of something – I hadn't ever seen it before so I didn't know what it was – across his face and his eyes were suddenly bright. I wanted – I wanted to pick him up and hold him, that's what I wanted – but if I backed down now – how could I marry him next week if I backed down now?

"Say what you want to say," he said, still using his neutral tone of voice.

"Is that an order, sir?" I asked, and then I waited.

"You know bloody well that it isn't!" he shouted, standing.

He'd hit me, once – and I wondered, as I watched him clench his fists, if he was remembering that he'd hit me too. He'd knocked me half across the room, I remembered; but I hadn't been expecting it, then. I wasn't going to expect it now, either – but I still wasn't going to back down. He was always telling me he wasn't my father. I didn't have to expect him to be.

"Then don't," I said, standing as well, "shut me down and shut me out."

"How," he demanded, "have I done either one?"

I could do this. "You put your diplomatic face on – and don't deny it, Jean-Luc, because I fucking _saw_ you put it on – _and_ I've known you long enough to recognise it – and you sat there throughout that whole ceremony, and you were _so_ gracious, and _so_ European, and _so_ charming to everyone –" I paused to take a breath " – and there was not one fucking moment during the five hours that we were there that you were _real_. It was all – and I mean _all_ – a goddamned performance from Jean-Luc Picard, great Federation diplomat."

"How dare you?" he said. "Just who the bloody hell do you think you are?"

"I'm Will Riker," I answered quietly. "I'm the man you love, and who loves you. I'm the man you're marrying next week."

He sat down. "I'm not a religious man," he said. He was trying for reasonable. "You know this."

"Bullshit," I said. "Your performance had absolutely nothing to do with your objections to the metaphor of a creative force in the universe."

"Then why don't you," he said, and I could see he was literally trembling – trembling! – with suppressed rage, "_fucking_ tell me what it is?"

"Don't you think, Jean-Luc," I said, "that if I knew I would help you? Do you think it's _easy_ for me to stand here and watch you suffer?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

I just looked at him. First I'd wanted to hold him; now I just wanted to shake him until he came to his senses. "Whatever," I said. "You tell me that my inability to – to _articulate_ my emotions is frustrating. I guess this must be payback, then."

"_Dieu du Ciel_," he muttered, rubbing his eyes.

"Interesting choice of words," I said. "I'm taking a shower."

"Will – " he began. Again.

I turned around. "Yes?"

"I can't," he said.

"You can't what?" I asked, coming closer to him. I wasn't going to let him off the hook, but I wasn't going to cause him pain.

"I can't tell you what I don't understand myself," he said. "I – I don't know what it is."

"And if the roles were reversed, Jean-Luc," I said, "would you let me get away with saying that?" I waited, and when he didn't say anything more, I added, "You were okay. _We_ were okay. And then you got the communication from your brother. And it's been downhill ever since. You know what it is. There's some – some _trauma_ – that is a barrier between you and Robert. It's tearing you both apart –"

"Will –"

I walked back to the chair, and bent down, and took his hand. "Shut up, Jean-Luc," I said, gently. "It's kept you estranged from your family since you entered the Academy. It's kept you isolated and alone. It's kept you from making friends – and from having a serious relationship."

"But, Will," he said.

"You reached out to me, Jean-Luc," I said. "I'd loved you for years. Probably from the very first, but I wasn't aware of it until I thought I'd lost you to the Borg. I knew how you felt about relationships. I'd watched you rebuff Beverly – and then let Vash go off with Q – and then watch Nella walk away. I wasn't ever going to say anything, because I didn't want to jeopardise what I _did_ have with you."

"Will."

"You saw that I was in trouble. You recognised my pain. Are you listening to me, Jean-Luc? You _recognised_ my pain – and _you_ reached out to _me_. So what is the monster that's between you and your brother?"

"Monster, Will?" he asked.

"You said, 'I'm not a family man,'" I reminded him. "'But since the captain needs an image of _geniality_ toward the little monsters….'"

"You would quote my own words back to me?" he asked, and there was a sadness in his voice I hadn't heard before.

"What person calls kids 'monsters'?" I said. "Jean-Luc? Even _Billy_ knew who the _real_ monster was – and it wasn't him."

"You thought Billy was a monster, once," Jean-Luc said.

"I thought I'd killed Rosie, once," I answered. "Who did you kill, Jean-Luc? Or who did Robert think you killed?"

"No one ever asks to be born," he said, weeping, and I took him into my arms.


	10. Chapter 10

10.

I'd held him, as he wept for a few minutes, and then he'd apologised to me, hesitantly, because – because it seemed he was afraid he'd lose _me_. The way he'd thought he'd lost everyone else. He allowed me to help him into bed, and he seemed so old to me, then; it was the first time the thirty years between us became a reality to me, and he was so much smaller than perhaps I'd ever realised, so I just took him in my arms and let him sleep. I'd pushed him as far as he could go. There was no point in pushing further; he wasn't able to tell me - and I knew that space so very well. I would have to trust that Marie Picard had the answer. I wasn't exactly sure what I should do, when the answer came – but there was Deanna, and there was Lior, and then I remembered that there was McBride. McBride had treated Jean-Luc, too, hadn't he, during my illness? I tried to think back. Those days were all a confused blur, because I was half – or more than half – out of my mind, never knowing what was real and what was flashback, or nightmare, or hallucination. But I was sure – and then I did remember. McBride had prescribed respite care as part of Jean-Luc's treatment – I looked down at Jean-Luc, who was curled on his side, the way he must have slept, I thought, when he was a little boy. I could always ask McBride. After all, Lior had contacted McBride when he'd realised that the story of Purim had triggered me. I slid down in the bed, and pulled the quilt over Jean-Luc, and then wrapped my arm around him. It would be good, I thought, to speak to McBride.

I was in the fucking dream again. It started the same way it always did; with my mad, frenetic run through the woods, down the path to the creek, the brambles scratching my arms and my legs (and that was so stupid, because I'd found Rosie's body in September, hadn't I, and I wouldn't have been wearing shorts or a T-shirt in September), and Bet was running up ahead of me, her nose to the ground, searching out hares and woofing at an otter, and when I came to the creek I didn't find Rosie's body, or even the boy's who looked like Jean-Luc; I found my own.

I woke up, my heart pounding. Usually when I had the nightmare Jean-Luc woke me, and talked me through it and out of it, but this time he was still asleep. It was just as well, I thought, as I tried to regulate my breathing so I could calm myself down. He was clearly exhausted, from the stress of whatever was bothering him, and the stress of the stupid timing of this science mission, and the stress of the wedding – our wedding – next week. Surely he had to be stressed about it – I certainly was.

I untangled myself from him and got out of bed. I'd tossed my robe over the chair and I put it on, and went out into the dayroom. I thought that I'd get something to drink, and go to the head, and continue to work on my breathing, and by the time I was done with all of that I'd be ready to go back to sleep. Instead I sat down at my desk and booted up the computer, and there was Marie's answer, waiting for me. I opened up the communication and read it.

_Dear Will (and I assume you meant that I could call you that),_ she wrote, _I was both pleased and surprised to receive your message to me. Pleased, because of course you are family now, and honestly it has been more than a little daunting to be the only non-Picard in the pantheon of Picards both past and present, and I must say I am glad of a little company. They are a daunting bunch, the Picards, as you undoubtedly know. And I was surprised, because Jean-Luc of course was not very forthcoming about you, and has given us absolutely no details and sent no pictures, so it was hard to explain to René that he was going to have an "Uncle Will" when we had no idea who this Uncle Will was._

_ It seems to me that you are a very brave man, to write such a letter to a woman you don't know, and yet it is so obvious that Jean-Luc would be attracted to a man as brave and as strong as he himself has been. I of course did a little research and found that you are the one who is credited with saving all of us from the Borg invasion, and, in particular, saving Jean-Luc's life, a detail you forgot to mention when you were explaining how he had saved yours._

_ I read your letter over several times. I cannot imagine what you must have gone through, first as a little boy to suffer such pain and then again when you were in the midst of your terrible illness. I will say that the Picard men can be stubborn and irascible, as well as infuriatingly pigheaded, but they have an enormous capacity for love. I am glad that you had Jean-Luc by your side during that terrible time, and I am equally glad that he has you by his side now. He is a good man, and he has been a very lonely man all of his life, and knowing that you are there for him fills my heart with joy._

_ You said that Jean-Luc needs us, that he needs his brother to be there for him. I would agree and go one further: his brother needs to be there for himself, as well. You told me many things in your communication, about yourself, and your illness, and Jean-Luc's devotion to you, and you hinted that he suffered with you. You said that it was important for us to recognise this new chapter in his life and you are right. I knew Robert would say we could not come even as I knew we should, in fact, do so. But you left unsaid, I think, what you really wanted to know – the real reason why you wrote to me, and not to Robert._

_ You didn't ask what was wrong between Robert and Jean-Luc. You didn't ask why there has been so much suffering and pain and bitterness, although seeing how Robert has been behaving since he sent off his response to your invitation I can imagine that Jean-Luc has been behaving in a similar way. I suppose you felt you couldn't come right out and ask me, although you were quite bold in your assertion that we "needed" to come. I suppose starship captains and commanders must be bold in their actions and words._

_ I wonder if you have ever seen the family album that Jean-Luc has. If you have, I wonder if you have ever noticed the pages that are missing. Perhaps he has kept it hidden, in the way that Picards keep everything that is important, hidden._

I finished reading the message quickly, and then I rose quietly, after shutting the computer off, and went into Jean-Luc's library. I set the lights at forty percent and looked around. He'd put his family album away, and I found it, finally, packed back into a case and covered with a smooth flannel cloth. I took it out and set it carefully on the desk. It was surprisingly heavy, and I traced with my finger the heraldry on the cover, before I sat down in the chair – which was just a little small for me – and opened it up. I didn't spend any time looking at the old daguerreotypes and photographs; I was looking for what Marie had told me to look for – the photos of Jean-Luc's immediate family; one photograph in particular. Marie thought it would be hidden and it was; behind an old-fashioned picture of the family vineyard was another, smaller photograph of three blond little boys in formal suits, the oldest one so serious, the middle one smiling, and the youngest one looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but where he was.

Three, not two. Robert, the eldest. In the picture he looked maybe seven or eight, with dark blond hair and solemn eyes. Christophe-Henri, the family secret, sitting on a chair with the baby Jean-Luc on his lap, both of them with white-blond hair and dark eyes, the missing brother's arms wrapped around the little boy who clearly wanted to get down and who was looking, not at the photographer, but at someone else, perhaps his mother.

"You're in here again, Will?" Jean-Luc said from the doorway.

"It wasn't," I said, "that hard to find, once I knew where to look."

"What wasn't?" He was still in the doorway.

"The picture, Jean-Luc," I said. "The one your aunt Adèle gave to Marie, who hid it in this album."

"And what picture is that?" He sounded so tired.

"The one of the three of you," I said. "Robert, Chrisophe-Henri, and Jean-Luc." I stood, and walked over to him, the photograph in my hand. "You were a cute baby, Jean-Luc," I said, handing him the picture. "You and Christophe-Henri look very much alike, except," I said, smiling, wanting to erase the tiredness from his eyes, "you look as if you want to run away, here."

Mutely he took the picture and looked at it.

"You've understood me," I said, pulling him to me, lightly though, so he wouldn't run away. "All throughout my illness, you always knew what to say to help me. You knew how to comfort me. How to manage my feelings of self-hatred, and of guilt. And it never occurred to me – until this week – to wonder why. It's not as if they teach it in command school, Jean-Luc." I kissed him, lightly, on his cheek. "All families have tragedies, I think," I said. "Sometimes they're just small ones – the death of a family pet, I suppose, or a grandparent's illness – and sometimes they're more profound. A marriage that ends. The accidental death of a child."

"I don't remember him," Jean-Luc said. "It was –" he took a deep breath "—my fault, and I don't remember him at all."

Maybe, I thought, I didn't need McBride after all. "Do you remember when we went to the Purim play?" I asked.

He nodded, still looking at the photograph in his hand of those three little boys.

"I watched those little kids perform," I said. "And I finally got it, what you'd been telling me, and what McBride told me. I was Natan's age. Eight, Jean-Luc – not even eight. Almost eight. Natan was on the stage, struggling with remembering a few simple lines from a play, trying to keep his beard on and trying to be dramatic, when he all he wanted to do was to sit down and laugh. And when I was that age –" I forced myself to say it "—when I was that age, I was fighting for survival, navigating through a landscape in which the wrong word or the wrong emotion would have gotten me killed. They way it killed my best friend." He didn't say anything, and I said, "I understood. I was just a little kid. I did the best I could. I was asked to do things no little kid should ever be asked to do. Most adults couldn't cope with what I was asked to do. I didn't have to carry the burden of guilt anymore, because I was just a little kid, and it wasn't my burden to begin with."

"I – " he began.

"Look at me," I said. I waited until he turned away from the photograph and looked up at me. "It doesn't matter what you did, Jean-Luc. Or what you thought you did. Or what you were told you did. Your brother died when you were four years old. If I wasn't responsible for hurting Christian Larsen – if I wasn't responsible for my kitten's death, or for Rosie's death, at eight – how could you be responsible for what happened to your brother when you were four?"

"I don't know," he whispered.

"I think," I said, leading him out of the library and back towards our bedroom, "that we should speak to Deanna, the two of us, about this. Will you agree to that, Jean-Luc?"

"Yes," he said, and it hurt so much that he just agreed to it, that he was too tired to deny it, or to put up a fight.

I took the photograph from his hand and placed it on the night table, and then I lowered the lights, and helped him into bed.

"Hiding stuff doesn't work, Jean-Luc," I said, holding him tightly. "I don't think we're meant to hide things. It kills you, if you do."

"I'd forgotten him," he said against my chest.

"No, you hadn't, Jean-Luc," I answered, kissing him again. "You were remembering him through saving me."


End file.
